Landing Event & Ancestor Festival (LEAF) 2026 transformed Africatown, Alabama, into the epicenter of cultural preservation and ancestral remembrance from July 9–12, 2026. More than just a celebration, this year’s four-day gathering moved beyond mere remembrance. It positioned the descendants of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to reach U.S. shores, as the primary architects of their own historical narrative.
The festival’s momentum was anchored by the opening of Lewis Landing, a new waterfront park on Three Mile Creek. During the First Africatown Community Middle Passage Convening, descendant Lorna Gail Wood noted that the space offers a necessary pause in a fast-moving world. “It’s a place where people can come to slow down, take a minute, and stop and think about what they have,” Wood said.
At the heart of LEAF 2026 was the Protect Truth Summit, a centerpiece event that brought together heavyweights of historical discourse. To help protect this reclamation of history, the festival hosted luminaries like Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project, and acclaimed author Cebo Campbell. The summit signaled that Africatown’s struggle for truth is a modern intellectual imperative. Their participation was a strategic alignment of national voices with local expertise, ensuring the Clotilda story is told on the community’s terms, not as a footnote in American history.
For the community, that “having” is hard-won. The festival activities, from libation ceremonies to the Middle Passage reflections, are a direct extension of the life of Cudjoe Lewis. In the early 20th century, Lewis fought to ensure his community’s African identity would not be erased. Today, through the LEAF festival, his descendants have moved from simply preserving his stories to building the infrastructure, parks, archives, and summits that guarantee those truths remain immovable.
