New London ― Pouring water into a potted plant, Adwoa Bandele-Asante asked those in the crowd to call out the names of their ancestors, whether personal to them or well-known names such as Frederick Douglas. After each pour, she would say “Ashe,” a Yoruban word of affirmation.

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yeah, we wept when we remembered Zion,” Bandele-Asante sang.

Bandele-Asante of PEACE Works Group performed a libation, or an offering to ancestral spirits, during Sunday’s Middle Passage ceremony at the Amistad Pier as the city reflected on its ties to the transatlantic slave trade.

Community leaders and residents gathered at the pier near a plaque designating the site as a UNESCO Slave Route Project Site of Memory. New London is one of 53 ports in North America in which ships arrived directly from Africa with enslaved Africans, and one of only two in Connecticut.

Curtis Goodwin, a former city councilor and the project manager for New London’s Black Heritage Trail, emceed on Sunday. Goodwin said the designation tells a history not widely told in schools and in particular a local history which often comes with ugly truths.

“The more we embrace our history with its ugly truths, the better off we are and it makes our communities stronger,” Goodwin said.

The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project facilitated the designation and ceremony as it works with other port cities to do the same. The Project is a non-profit organization established in 2011 to honor the two million captive Africans who perished during the transatlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage and the ten million who survived to build the Americas.

Bill Hamilton is a Connecticut native who sits on the Project’s board of directors and now lives in Kentucky. Hamilton attended Sunday’s event and said he has worked with a lot of cities for the project but was impressed with how New London pulled together its project.

New London received the designation in light of documentation which reveals the arrival of the slave ship Speedwell in New London on July 17, 1761. The ship carried 74 enslaved Africans in its hold, and twenty-one other Africans died during the Speedwell’s voyage.

And it is likely this was not the only ship to carry enslaved Africans through the city’s port. “Although this is the only documented instance of a ship arriving in New London directly from Africa with enslaved Africans, slave traders often sailed from New London to Africa and the West Indies to purchase enslaved Africans and sell them throughout the Americas,” said the text on the plaque.

The plaque is located next to one which notes the Amistad’s arrival in the city in 1839.

The ceremony Sunday, sponsored by the New London Cultural District and organized with help from New London Landmarks, included multiple speakers and performances.

Mayor Michael Passero acknowledged the importance of native and Black histories which are often subject to “whitewashing.” He said much of the history is buried and the city is working to change that.

“By understanding and educating, we empower ourselves to overcome racism and injustice today,” Passero said.

Other speakers included State Representative Anthony Nolan, H. P. Kheder from the Islamic Center of New London and Lonnie Braxton II, a senior assistant to the state’s attorney in New London who graduated from a segregated high school in Mississippi.

Performances included a dance and blessing of the lands by Miss Mashantucket Preonna Boyd-Cannon, African drumming and dancing by Nia Arts, and poetry by New London Poet Laureate Joshua Brown.

Lulu Sams Allen, of Bridgeport, said she attended Sunday’s event for the experience and to support one of the speakers.

“It’s about time but not enough,” she said. “It’s not enough for people who are still being abused and under-served by the government.”

Reverend Jane P.H. Bernoudy gave a final dedication prayer and called out the documented names of twenty-one Africans who arrived on the Speedwell and were enslaved on Normand Morrison’s farm in Bolton.

“Wallace, Cooper, Sier, Tobie, Yolmbo...”

After each name, people with flowers took turns throwing them into the Thames River, once only known as Pequot River by those native to the land.