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A Way Out of No Way
Dinah’s Legacy is a descendant-led public humanities initiative grounded in the life of a Clotilda survivor and the intergenerational community of women of Africatown and Gee’s Bend.
The project centers comunity-making, faith, labor, and ethical descendant-led interpretation as living history.
Our Ancestors Speak
This section presents Sally Miller's life as intergenerational evidence of women's survival, kinship, faith, and continuity following enslavement.
Sally Miller
Dinah's Daughter
Her Story
An amazing story
As a fifth-generation descendant of Dinah, I am humbled by the resilience, strength, and resolve passed down through generations of women whose survival was sustained through faith, kinship, and community.
Power in Storytelling
The voices of those who have gone before us still resonate across generations. Within Dinah's Legacy, descendant-led storytelling honors these lies as sources of historical knowledge, preserving courage, faith, and memory carried in our bones.
The Legacy Continues
When Grandmom Dinah arrived in Alabama, specifically Central Alabama, I wonder how she must have felt. From my twenty-first century perspective, I am blessed to honor her life by carrying forward a legacy with care and responsibility, shaped by survival, faith, and community across generations.
Legacy: The Quilts of Gees Bend
Quilts as Community Knowledge
Quilts connected to my ancestor and her descendants are understood with Dinah's Legacy as material records of women's labor, kinship, and historical continuity. Created within conditions shaped by enslavement, geographic isolation, and economic exclusion, these quilts reflect community-centered practices of care, survival, and storytelling.
Gees Bends quilts have been lauded for their incredible artistry and craftsmanship. But they mean way more than that to me.
I. AM. A. DESCENDANT. OF. QUILTERS.
Ella Bendolph
Strips
Photo Credit: Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Missouri Pettway
Four Columns of Stacked Blocks
Photo Credit: Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Arlonzia Pettway
Blocks, Strips, and Strings
Photo Credit: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin
Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Legacy: Gees Bend and Dr. MLK
This section situates Gee's Bend within broader histories of civil rights, community organizing, and women's leadership, emphasizing how local activism intersected with national movements while remaining rooted in place.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made several visits to The Bend and surrounding areas, including to my Grandmother Ella's church. Within Dinah's Legacy, these visits are understood as moments where faith-based community life, women's leadership, and local organizing intersected with broader civil rights struggles thereby affirming the role of the Black church as a site of spiritual grounding, collective courage, and community action in Gee's Bend. d.
Legacy: Connection to the Clotilda
This section explores the connection between Gee's Bend and the Clotilda through lineage, migration, and intergenerational survival. While the Clotilda is often associated with Africatown, its legacy extends beyond a single community. For families connected to Gee's Bend, that legacy is carried through women's lives, kinship networks, labor, faith, and memory, shaping community continuity across generations.
Additional Sources: Souls Grown Deep, Gees Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, and The Quilts of Gees Bend by William Arnett
Abduction and Arrival
110 Africans were captured and abducted from their homeland in West Africa. A large number of the group had been captured by the King of Dahomey. The captain of the Clotilda, William Foster, selected the 110 Africans from a barracoon ( a prison for African captives waiting to be sold) in Ouidah, in modern day Benin.
A Wager That Changed Lives
Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could bring enslaved Africans to Mobile without retribution. Of course, he did. The Clotilda arrived at Mobile Bay on July 9, 1860, after 60 days at sea. My Grandmother Dinah, her mom, dad, and brother were among those captives.
Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama - Sylviane Diouf
Language Matters
I prefer and encourage the use of the term enslaved to refer to barbaric and inhumane treatment that our ancestors endured. Enslaved describes the conditions under which they lived.
The 110 Africans aboard the Clotilda were enslaved.
Africatown and Gee's Bend
Over 30 formerly enslaved Africans created their own community in an area North of Mobile called Plateau. The community was called Africatown and is still inhabited by descendants of those formerly enslaved Africans. About 25 of the enslaved Africans were sold upriver.
Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama - Sylviane Diouf
(Edited) It is suspected that my 2nd Great- Grandmother Dinah was among them. She was sent to central Alabama and her daughter, Sally, ended up on the former Pettway Plantation. Some of her descendants still reside there today. The area is commonly referred to as Gee's Bend.
Source: As told by Arlonzia Pettway
Legacy: Gee’s Bend Ferry
The Lifeline Between Gee's Bend and Camden
The ferry served as a lifeline between Gee's Bend and Camden. What would have been a forty-five-minute drive to Camden was reduced to a ten-minute ride on the ferry, shaping daily access to work, worship, education, and community life. Within Dinah's Legacy, the ferry is understood not only as transportation infrastructure, but as a force that sustained connection, survival, and continuity for Gee's Bend families.
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