Descendants Forum Founding Stewards

The Clotilda Descendants Association and Kinfolkology serve as the Descendants Forum’s organizational Founding Stewards during its initial formation. This role is intended to be temporary. At the Forum’s inaugural convening, the Congress of member organizations will ratify the Forum’s governance structure and elect its inaugural Board of Directors. At that time, all Founding Steward roles will sunset, and leadership of the Forum will transition to the representative governance established by its member organizations.

See the Descendants Forum’s anticipated timeline here.

The Clotilda Descendants Association (CDA) represents the descendants of the 110 African men, women, and children illegally trafficked to Alabama aboard the Clotilda in 1860, the last known slave ship to arrive in the United States. Based in Africatown, Alabama—the community founded by survivors of the voyage—the Association works to preserve the history and legacy of the Clotilda survivors and their descendants. Through historical preservation, education, community advocacy, and partnerships with scholars and cultural institutions, the CDA advances remembrance, truth-telling, and justice connected to the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

Kinfolkology is a descendant-centered research initiative, open archive, and collaborative community dedicated to remembering enslaved African and African American people as kin and kindred in full partnership with their descendants. Through historical scholarship, genealogical research, and data-driven projects such as Oceans of Kinfolk, Kinfolkology works to recover the names, families, and histories of enslaved people and reconnect fragmented archival records to living descendant communities. Kinfolkology is governed by a Board of Directors on which descendants must hold at least three-fourths of the seats, ensuring that the organization remains descendant-led and accountable to the communities whose histories it seeks to document and honor.

Steering Committee

  • Laura Rosanne Adderley, Ph.D.

    Laura Rosanne Adderley is a Associate Professor of History at Tulane University.

  • Chanelle Blackwell

    Chanelle Blackwell is a direct descendant of Clotilda Survivor Areba Riggins. Chanelle currently works in education and fundraising and is a proud member of the Clotilda Descendants Association.

  • Darron Patterson

    A native of Plateau, Alabama, also known as Africatown, Darron is the great-great-grandson of Clotilda slave ship survivor “Kupollee,” one of the last 110 Africans to be illegally brought to America from Africa in 1860. He is the former President of the Clotilda Descendants Association (2019-2022), is serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Kinfolkology.

  • Charmaine Taylor

    Charmaine Anderson Taylor is a proud descendant of Areba Riggins and member of the Clotilda Descendants Association. With over thirty years of experience in the healthcare and technology sectors, Charmaine currently serves as an engagement manager for a Fortune 200 tech organization. She graduated summa cum laude from Norfolk State University.

  • Jennie K. Williams, Ph.D.

    Jennie K. Williams, Ph.D. is a historian with expertise in American slavery and the domestic slave trade, digital methodologies, data and data ethics. She is the Founding Executive Director of Kinfolkology, an open archive, database collective, and collaborative community dedicated to remembering enslaved people as kin and kindred in full partnership with Descendant communities.

Advisory Council

  • Omar Eaton-Martinez

    Omar is the Senior Vice President for Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where he leads the preservation, interpretation, and overall stewardship of 28 historic sites across the country to tell the full American story. Prior to this position, he led the Prince George’s County Historical Resources which include historical house museums, an aviation museum, the Black History Program and archaeological parks. He also oversees the programming of those sites with an emphasis placed on preserving, sustaining and enhancing these resources as well as engaging and building communities through education, outreach and innovation.

  • Shelley Viola Murphy, Ph.D.

    Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy is the Descendant Project Researcher at the University of Virginia where she spearheads the study of the enslaved laborers who laid the university’s foundational stones. An avid genealogist for over 30 years, Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy, aka “familytreegirl,” was born and raised in Michigan and now lives in central Virginia.

  • Joseph McGill Jr.

    Joseph McGill Jr., of Ladson, S.C., is founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. He was previously a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is the former executive director of the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the former director of history and culture at Penn Center, St.

  • Frederick Murphy

    Frederick Murphy is the founder of History Before Us, LLC, a project centered on capturing, preserving and advocating influential history. His first film, the award-winning The American South as We Know It, explores the lives of survivors of Jim Crow—the courageous individuals who didn’t make the headlines. His second documentary, The Other Side of the Coin: Race, Generations & Reconciliation, was released on September 2, 2020. Mr. Murphy is also a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor.