POWERGRAMS

S ince she was a small girl, Pat Frazier has treasured the stories about her great-great- grandmother, one of the 110 west Africans who were illegally smuggled into Mobile Bay in 1860 aboard the slave ship, the Clotilda. "Most people see their experience as a horror story," said Frazier. "But I see it as a story about people who overcame the worst possible odds and found a way to thrive." One of those who indeed thrived was Lottie Dennison, Frazier's great-great- grandmother. Lottie and James Dennison had been married in Washington County at the urging of their slaveowner but feared that the marriage would not be recognized. When slavery was abolished in 1865, they were remarried in Mobile and built a life near Africatown, the community established by Clotilda survivors. Frazier remembers the family stories about Lottie. "ey said Lottie could work like a man and was as strong as a man, and she could balance a bushel of potatoes or other items on her head," Frazier said. Perhaps the most memorable story, Frazier said, is the one about Lottie and the local constable. "According to family lore, Lottie was not happy when the constable came to her house, and so she picked him up and threw him back over the fence," said Frazier, noting that would have been a real challenge because her great-great-grandmother only weighed about 130 pounds and was 5 feet, 3 inches tall. It's those kinds of stories that Frazier and the other members of the Clotilda Descendants Association (CDA) are working to share and preserve through its new oral history and video project. e Alabama Power Foundation recently provided a grant to the CDA to help support the project, which is designed to give "voice and visibility" to the 110 survivors and their descendants. "We are grateful for the support and the partnership with the Alabama Power Foundation and look forward to building on it," said Greg Morrison, CDA board member. "When we tell our own stories, we are better as a community because we know our true legacy." As a former reporter at WALA-10 in Mobile, Morrison is using his skills to help head the project, which involves recruiting and training youths in Africatown to help pass along those stories. ey will help create an oral history of the community by conducting video interviews with their older family members about their experiences and those of their Clotilda ancestors. "Many of these young kids are sixth- and seventh -generation descendants, and they don't know the story of the Clotilda," said Frazier, co-chairperson of the oral history project. "In the past, there was almost a stigma about having African roots. e whole idea is to let the young kids learn the stories by engaging them in helping to tell the stories." e funding from the foundation will be used to purchase video 22 FOUNDATION GRANT HELPS RECORD HISTORY

• Cover