Documentarian Margaret Brown has a rich filmmaking history. And appropriately enough, a bit of that history sparked Descendant, which brings history to life, carrying with it profound lessons that are relevant today.
In a filmmaking timeline, Descendant can in some respects be traced back some 14 years when Brown turned out a lauded documentary, The Order of Myths, centered on the interconnected histories of two Mardi Gras queens in Mobile, Alabama–one Black, the other white. The latter, Helen Meaher, was a direct descendant of Timothy Meaher who it was said had brought the last slave ship to America illegally in 1860. The Black queen, Stefannie Lucas, was a direct descendant of one of the African captives who was allegedly brought to America on that ship, which was called the Clotilda. The parallel histories of these two queens formed the emotional foundation on which The Order of Myths was built. During the course of making that film, Brown got to know a number of residents of Africatown, a residential area of Mobile founded by former slaves who were brought over on the Clotilda.
Fast forward to around 2019 when the burned wreckage of a ship was found in the Mobile River. It became the first slaving vessel to have been discovered in North American waters. What had been referred to in mainstream circles as the “legend” or “folklore” of the Clotilda could finally be verified. When she heard the news, Brown was living in Los Angeles and had no immediate plans to go back to Africatown. But over a fateful lunch with a longtime compatriot, producer Louis Black, who was instrumental early on in her career, came an assertion that she needed to hear. Brown recalled Black telling her, “Are you crazy? You have to go.” He wrote Brown a check and sent her off on a plane to delve more deeply into the story.
And Brown, whose hometown is Mobile, is great at delving, connecting with a wide range of voices–community leaders, direct descendants from the Clotilda, uncovering stories and details that had been passed down over the years, cobbling together a powerful living oral history that sheds light on slavery.
But this isn’t a distant story rooted solely in injustices of the past and the horror of being abducted from your homeland for a life of servitude in America. Rather Brown also digs into Africatown of today, reflecting the impact of systemic racism that is still being felt. Onerous industrial zoning regulations have surrounded Africatown with a hazardous waste dump, a lead manufacturing plant, chemical refineries for the paper and oil industries. Brown noted that a graveyard sits next to an asphalt plant. It’s as if this has been deemed an acceptable habitat for residents, reflecting a racism not confined to Mobile, related Brown, noting that other Black communities have similarly been put in harm’s way, their health being seriously compromised. Just look at Flint, Michigan, a city with a nearly 60 percent Black population, which for a year and a half had to use water from the Flint River that wasn’t treated to prevent pipe corrosion, thus causing lead to leach from old pipes into homes.
Brown acknowledged a bit of naivete when she embarked on the film which became Descendant. She thought, for example, that Helen Meaher, whom she got to know on The Order of Myths, and helped to promote that film, would talk to her about the discovery of the Clotilda. Turned out that assumption was wrong as Brown generally had a hard time–with some exceptions–getting white people of note in the community to address the history that was unearthed and confirmed.
Ironically that’s a turn of events that was contrary to the norm circa 1860 when the Clotilda made its nefarious voyage. Brown observed that back then, Blacks who knew of the Clotilda were told not to speak about what happened–or they would face consequences. Also, noted Brown, Blacks were not allowed to be literate. Women were often denied education. History, she said, was written by white men and “we believed that history.”
That flawed history was definitively sunk by the discovery of the Clotilda wreckage, the importance of which was perhaps most eloquently expressed by Emmett Lewis, a descendant of Africatown founder Cudjo Lewis, the last known survivor of the Clotilda. Emmett Lewis was among those Brown connected with in her pursuit of the truth in Descendant. At the end of the film, he affirmed that his one fear is “for my people’s story not to be told.”
Descendant tells that story, conveying its indelible impact then and on future generations. An official selection of this year’s Sundance (where it won a Special Jury Award) and SXSW film festivals, Descendant debuts today (10/21) on Netflix and in select theaters. A celebration and theater screening are slated for Mobile on Saturday night (10/22).
Descendant was produced by Brown, Essie Chambers, Kyle Martin and co-produced by Dr. Kern Jackson of the University of South Alabama who has spent more than two decades recording the oral histories of the Africatown community. Exec producers are Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, Shawn Gee, Zarah Zohlman, Kate Hurwitz and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Descendant was edited by Geoffrey Richman and Michael Bloch; the former has an extensive track record of collaboration with Brown who’s also teamed with Bloch in the past. The film was produced under the banner of Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, which teamed with Netflix and Participant.
Brown’s documentary work over the years has examined the American South, from a seminal film on singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, Be Here to Love Me, to the impactful story of the BP oil spill’s lasting impact, The Great Invisible, which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW in 2014. Brown's aforementioned The Order of Myths earned numerous awards including a Peabody and the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award. She’s also done short form work for The New York Times and Field of Vision, and recently directed an episode of Dirty Money for Netflix.
