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Elias Williams

Wanda Patrice Henderson (left), a descendant of Clotilda survivors Pollee and Rose Allen, and Patricia Frazier (right), a descendant of Clotilda survivors James and Lottie Dennison, pose for portraits near the wreck site in May 2022. “I worked, went to school, and now that I’m retired, I'm interested—you know I want to learn my history,” Frazier says. “I want to learn where I came from.”

Vernetta Henson (left), a descendant of Clotilda survivors Pollee and Rose Allen, and Emmett Lewis (right), a Clotilda descendant of Cudjo Lewis, pose for a portrait on the Mobile River near the site of the wreck in May 2022. “A lot of people tell me I look like Cudjo Lewis,” Lewis says. “Just having that pride of my father talking about him and having that pride of hearing that my grandfather was raised by him. It’s like I was raised by him too.”

The Apollo Theater has been a Harlem landmark since the 1930s, when it helped propel music genres such as jazz, R&B, and the blues into the American mainstream. The Apollo was one of New York City’s many historic entertainment venues that closed in early 2020 to stem the spread of COVID-19. It remained shuttered for a year and a half—and finally returned, to much excitement, in August 2021.

Dancers in a performance called “125th and Freedom” proceed down Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. Part protest and part parade, the choreographed production along what is also known as 125th Street explores migration, gentrification, and emancipation in a society that, in King’s words, puts profits over people.

This year, Matilda McCrear was identified as the last known survivor of the last known slave ship. She was brought to the U.S. aboard the Clotilda as a two-year-old in 1860, and is believed to be buried in an unmarked grave at the Martin Station Cemetery near Safford, Alabama. (From: The last slave ship survivor and her descendants identified)

New York, USA: Before the pandemic, photographer Elias Williams would often hear people passing beneath his apartment window in the Bronx. "With most people staying indoors this all happens infrequently," he says, "amplifying the dragging sound of car traffic, hair-raising ambulance sirens, and the gentle chime for closing doors on the trains underground."

Patricia Frazier carries the flag of Benin, the modern nation once ruled by the kingdom of Dahomey, who sold more than a hundred captives to the captain of the Clotilda. "If they find that ship, I think it will make people more aware of our history," says Frazier. "Sometimes you need something tangible to spur those memories."