For the Africatown community and its supporters, the July 4 weekend promises to be a blockbuster: The Clotilda Descendants Association has combined its two biggest events into one multi-day celebration.
In recent years the CDA has presented a Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival early in the year, followed by a Landing event in July. The festival has served as a festive community gathering, while the Landing has been a more somber, spiritual affair commemorating events of July 1860, when the slave ship Clotilda unloaded what is believed to be the last shipment of captive Africans brought into slavery in the United States.
This year the festival has been shifted to the same July weekend as the Landing, which happens to coincide with July 4. The combined festivities are being presented under a new umbrella, “LEAF,” meaning Landing Event and Ancestor Festival…