Historical Record
Documentarians explain how they filmed the unscripted scenes that became pivotal to their stories.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Margaret Brown didnt believe the wreckage of theClotildawould be located when she started shootingDescendant.
I thought they werent going to find it, she said.
The Meahers, who own much of the land around Africatown, remain conspicuously off-screen and silent.
But one member does make an unexpected appearance at a 2020 festival thrown by the films subjects.
Finding theClotilda.
The existence of theClotildahad, for a long time, occupied a limbolike place between local history and lore.
Brown recalls Helen Meahers mother referring to the Meahers as the family that brought the last slave ship.
It was a whisper, Brown explains.
She wanted me to know for context, but it was something you didnt talk about.
I didnt remember learning it in school ever.
Mobile is also the site of one of the last reported lynchings in the country in 1981.
Theres some stuff going on thats different than meets the eye, Brown said.
Finding the Meahers.
Hubristically, I thought the Meaher family would talk to me, Brown said of those early days.
Everyone was trying to get them to comment, and its a pretty big family.
She had reason to believe shed be able to get access to at least one member.
I didnt really think the older generation would talk, but I thought Helen would talk to me.
We were in communication on Facebook.
Were both runners, and so we would talk about running.
Then I would be like, Im making this film, and it involves your family.
I think it would be really beautiful if you guys would comment.
I listed a lot of reasons why, and she just never responded.
She would respond to anything about running stretches, but never anything about theClotilda.
They were like,Man, if they dont want to talk to us, cool.
We lived our lives this long.
Finding Michael Foster.
Brown didnt reach out to Foster that was the work of60 Minutes, whichaired a segment on theClotildain 2021.
They wanted him to be their thing, Brown notes.
60 Minuteshad this thing like a reality-TV show where they introduce everybody:Surprise.
It was not the approach that I would take.
But Foster turned up at the Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival on his own initiative.
Its an organic moment so perfect that some whove seen the film assumed it was arranged.
A journalist asked me if I engineered that, Brown said.
As to that exchange on the boat, Brown remembers thinking Wow, dude, really?
when they were filming.
But she also notes that what he did in that moment is common.
I think there is a deep knowledge, for some people at least, that we did something wrong.
We were seeing a white-person coping mechanism and him getting corrected at that moment.
He was like, Oh, God, what did I say?
and I told him.
He was like, I said that?
and I said, Yeah.
Finding Margaret Brown.
That connection didnt surface, so she sought a different approach.
That is the story.
