‘Descendant’ Review: Searching For The Clotilda, The Last Known Slave Ship
African American history often gets buried in the bowels of the past. I am always embarrassed when I learn about moments from Black history that I feel I should already know. The subject of Margaret Brown’s documentary Descendant is the slave ship Clotilda, found off the coast of Plateau, Alabama (labeled Africatown). Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, then screened at SXSW, it is the first film to open the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. Descendant is also produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground.