“Descendant” tells about the struggle for justice of the black population of the city of Africatown in Alabama of ancestors who were illegally brought to America on the ship “Clotilde” in 1859 or 1860, despite the Prohibition of the Import of Slave Act, which was passed in 1808.
The story is interesting because the ship was not officially registered anywhere, because the owner faced punishment, up to the death penalty and was rumored to have been burned and sunk near the city. Due to the fact that the descendants of the slaves brought on the Clotilde had no proof of the existence of the ship, they could not accurately declare their origin and demand reparations and justice from the state. The Clotilde existed only as a legend passed down by word of mouth by the black population of Africatown.
After the Civil War, Cujo Cazula Lewis and thirty-one freed slaves founded Africatown. Kujo is one of the central figures of the narrative. We read his memoirs from Zora Niel Hurston, a writer and one of the first black directors in America. The book "Barracun." The story of the last slave, told by himself, written in 1931, was not published until 2018, 58 years after her death.
In January 2018, after a long search, a statement was made that the wreckage of the Clotilda was finally found and only in May 2019, after a long verification process, it was officially confirmed that the vessel found in the lower part of the Delta of the Mobile Tenso River is a slave-owning ship Clotilda.
“Descendant” is undoubtedly an interesting and necessary narrative that opens the veil of secrecy about the cruel and inhuman past of the United States. Such stories are endless and they will be enough for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of new films that will not return life to any of the slaves, and their descendants faith in humanity. The film draws a parallel with the present and shows that the descendants of long-suffering slaves continue to face racism and still hope for the admission of guilt of the Micher family, planters and slave owners who own not only land, but also factories in the district, which pollute the air and caused illness and death of the inhabitants of Afrikatuana.
It is disgusting to watch one of the descendants of the slave owners of the Foster family, coming to the tomb of Cujo Cazula Lewis for the first time, says that it is “cool and fun”. Yeah, it's fun. And this is the attitude of almost all white residents of this town. Many first heard about “Clotilde”, and the suffering of the characters of the film was for them a discovery and judging by the reaction is not necessary information.
The only thing that bothered me when I saw the film was why the story was only now, not even ten or twenty years ago. It is clear that the people in this community are not rich and do not have the necessary connections to pull off a complex operation with the search for a slave ship at the bottom of the river, but it seems that they only moved when American society began to think about their past and our heroes realized that they were entitled to some kind of payments, like the descendants of slaves, which is repeatedly mentioned in the film. Was it really important for them to find out the truth and find this ship, or were they more concerned about their benefits? No one will answer that question, but the movie is worth watching.
