Assembly is underway of a building that will house a new exhibit telling the long-untold story of the Clotilda, the nation’s last known slave ship, and the town created by the African survivors who suffered aboard her on their forced passage  to America.

Sections of a 5,000-square-foot, pre-fabricated modular building arrived Nov. 15 in Mobile’s Africatown community. Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood said the sections are now being assembled to create what will be called the Africatown Heritage House Museum.

“Since groundbreaking in February, we ran into the same supply chain issues our entire construction industry has had,” Ludgood said. “So, rather than our modular buildings being delivered in May or June, we got them last week.”

Assembly of Africatown Heritage House Museum underway from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Crews should have the building assembled by the end of January, Ludgood said. At that time, staff from the History Museum of Mobile will begin to assemble the exhibit.

“The museum is going to need three months to install the exhibit,” Ludgood said. “So we’re looking at April or May of 2022 for opening.”

The Africatown Heritage House will be home to an exhibit telling the story of the Clotilda. (contributed)

A $1.3 million contract to build the Africatown Heritage House Museum was approved in January by the Mobile County Commission. More than half of that money was funded through Ludgood’s capital improvement plan, while $250,000 was contributed by the city of Mobile.

The exhibit that will be housed inside the museum is being curated by the History Museum of Mobile in partnership with the Alabama Historical Commission and the Africatown Advisory Council. Ludgood said the exhibit is being financed with assistance from the Alabama Power Foundation, the Alabama State Council on the Arts and other donors.

“Alabama Power Company has been a major investor for the exhibit,” Ludgood said. “We started out with maybe a $60,000 budget and then we got a little bit more. Each time more money came, they (the History Museum of Mobile) were able to continue to grow the exhibit, so we are very excited about what it has become.”

History Museum of Mobile Director Meg Fowler, left, receives an Alabama Power Foundation grant from Alabama Power Mobile Division Vice President Patrick Murphy on the site of the future Africatown Heritage House, which will be home to an exhibit on the Clotilda. (Alabama NewsCenter)

The exhibit will tell the story of the final journey of the Clotilda, the settlement and history of Africatown, and the discovery of the sunken schooner in 2019 – all through a combination of interpretive text panels, documents and artifacts.

“We have been able to get artifact loans from major institutions in the country, which adds stature to what we’re doing,” Ludgood said. “I think this is going to be a world-class exhibit and it’s going to be right there in the middle of the community, which is what they really wanted. This is why we ended up building the Heritage House there because they wanted it to be in the community.”

Ludgood expects the exhibit to remain at the Africatown Heritage House Museum for about three years, giving her and other stakeholders the time they need to design, engineer and construct a welcome center that will also give curators room to grow the exhibit.

“After the exhibit leaves Heritage House, the building will then become just another community asset,” Ludgood said. “They’ll be able to host community meetings, small gatherings and some productions if they want to use it as a small entertainment venue. It will always be a cultural anchor in Africatown.”