The story begins in a historic town 3 miles north of Mobile, Alabama and is a community populated primarily by descendants from the Clotilda, the last known slave ship from Africa.

In 1860, 110 West Africans were transported against their will and despite the slave trade being banned since 1808. The legend had it the ship was set on fire and sunk in the Mobile river however the ship had never been located. The arc of the story traces some of the descendants and stories they had been told about the Clotilda.

Another element of the story is how the owner of the Clotilda owned the land along the river where the ship was thought to have sunk, and follows the building of a paper mill and subsequent industrial pollution that also adversely impacts the community. In 2018 a reporter and research team did the first modern survey of the Mobile river and discovered the Clotilda wreckage.

Poignant and compelling interviews are interwoven throughout as residents grapple with what it will mean for their community as the wreckage is discovered and the fear of it being monetized without regard for the community, their heritage and honoring their legacy.