Africatown, Alabama, also, The UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty and Heritage. Honor and Remembrance of the Ancestors /. Africatown, Alabama Honor and Remembrance of the Ancestors. On July 9, 1860. the schooner Clotilda, America's last slave ship, arrived in the Port of Mobile from the West African slave Port of Whydah (Republic of Benin) where she on-boarded an illegal cargo of 110 West Africans who were captured in slave raids primarily in Benin and Nigeria (southwestern and central). Enslaved and left to fend for themselves in Alabama, thirty members of that fateful cargo built their own community called Africatown, popularized by folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. In the 19th century, Africatown flourished as a self-contained and self-sufficient community that sustained itself through its founders' application of their West African folk knowledge and practices such as age-grade governance, agriculture, bee-keeping, herbal medicine and quilting. Through the Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival, the Clotilda descendants honor and preserve their ancestors' legacies and West African folk traditions that were transferred in the Clotilda that was discovered in the Mobile River in May 2019, nearly 160 years after her infamous transatlantic smuggling voyage. Today, Africatown symbolizes the indomitable spirit of its West African founders who superseded slavery through community-building, thereby, providing a blueprint for its revitalization., Sources: Natalie S. Robertson, PhD, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, U.S.A.: Spirit of Our Ancestors,. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. The Clotilda Descendants Association , The UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty and Heritage. Launched in 1994, the international and inter-regional project "The Slave Route: Resistance, Liberty, Heritage" addresses the history of the slave trade and slavery through the prism of intercultural dialogue, a culture of peace and reconciliation. It thereby endeavors to improve the understanding and transmission of this human tragedy by making better known its deep-seated causes, its consequences for societies today and the cultural interactions born of this history. The project is structured around five key fields of activity: scientific research, development of educational materials, preservation of written archives and oral traditions, promotion of living cultures and contributions by the African diaspora and, lastly, preservation of sites of memory., The promotion of the memorial heritage related to the slave trade and slavery plays a decisive role not only in educating the general public, and young people in particular, but also in facilitating national reconciliation and social cohesion processes in societies. It is in this perspective that "The UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples" has created a label to encourage the preservation of sites of memories and the establishment of itineraries that can tell this story and ensure that this heritage receives due attention at the national, regional and international levels, This site fulfills the quality criteria set by UNESCO in conjunction with the International Network of Managers of Sites and Itineraries of Memory.