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Amistad in The Media - 2009
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Written by Ben Johnson, New Haven Independent
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Monday, 30 March 2009 |
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Two New Haven agencies are planning a maiden voyage to a new era of nonprofit budget-sharing — a route they described to state legislators as one way to stay afloat during the recession.
The two agencies, LEAP and Amistad America, are working on a voyage for young people to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their plan emerged as one hopeful sign during a public session New Haven’s state legislators held at City Hall Saturday to explain the gravity of the Connecticut’s budget crisis.
The state faces a projected $7 billion deficit over the next two years. So the proposed budget working its way through the legislature contains deep cuts to not-for-profits.
As nonprofits hit hard by the recession look for ways to keep afloat, LEAP and Amistad America are among those finding ways to work together to make resources stretch further.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 18 May 2009 )
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Amistad in The Media - 2009
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Written by Wojtek (Voytec) Wacowski
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Thursday, 19 February 2009 |
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The trajectory that began with slavery and led to our first African-American president is rich with milestones and achievement. Rex Ellis, associate director of curatorial affairs for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC.si.edu), shares with Kathy Baruffi for USA TODAY his list of venues and programs to celebrate Black History Month.
A replica of the Amistad schooner, based in New Haven but under repair for winter (in Mystic), has sailed to Africa, the Caribbean and other ports to teach about the victorious rebellion in 1839. "This program, which provides awareness of the history of the slave trade, is a wonderful learning experience for youngsters," Ellis says. Don't miss the definitive exhibit of sketches depicting historic and present Amistad journeys displayed in New Haven's Gateway Community College from Tuesday.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 February 2009 )
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Wojtek (Voytec) Wacowski
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Friday, 17 October 2008 |
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 The last months of Amistad's busy schedule visiting East Coast ports made her even more popular – the ship became a "cover girl" for the October edition of "The Harbor Pilot" - National Harbor's monthly magazine. I guess, we can forgive the editors calling us La Amistad, a common mistake of journalists. They didn't call Freedom Schooner Amistad "a slave ship", another common error in reporting, and referred to her visit as "... a privilege of hosting floating national treasure." The concept of the Amistad being an American History Monument, unique in her ability to move around the world, is not new. Hopefully. More people will see it that way.
The hosting of the Freedom Schooner Amistad at National Harbor created a tremendous educational opportunity for the region, allowing visitors and residents to tour the vessel first hand and visit the associated exhibit, displayed in the atrium of the Prince George’s County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
“Everyone at National Harbor was honored to host the Freedom Schooner Amistad, an incredible symbol of our nation’s history,” said Kent Digby, Vice President of National Harbor. “Since we began planning National Harbor we have looked to commemorate the history and heritage of our region. We were honored to have the opportunity to host this extraordinary vessel, which has such an enormous educational value.”
Read the Full Article - Download "The Harbor Pilot" (PDF file)
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 October 2008 )
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Gus G. Sentementes - Baltimore Sun
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Saturday, 11 October 2008 |
Students from Highlandtown Elementary School turn around and face Fort McHenry for a gun salute. (Baltimore Sun photo by Ann Tornkvist / October 10, 2008)
A replica of La Amistad docked at the Inner Harbor yesterday as part of an 18-month voyage that retraced the history of the original ship and the slave trade on the Atlantic Ocean.
Several speakers, including Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, extolled the historical importance of the original ship, while a large crowd of middle- and high-school students looked on from the dock. In 1839, the 53 slaves on the ship, which was transporting them between ports in Cuba, revolted and took control, and eventually guided the ship to New York, where it was captured by the U.S. Navy.
"We felt it was really important for them to see this," said April Ryan, a language arts teacher at Highlandtown Elementary-Middle School, who had escorted 24 students to the Inner Harbor. "We wanted them to see firsthand our history."
The ship, which is open for touring, is operated by the nonprofit AMISTAD America. It started its "Atlantic Freedom" tour in June 2007 and has visited about 20 ports. It is a modern replica of the two-masted, 120-foot-long schooner that was mostly used for transporting food, but had been ferrying slaves between Cuban ports when they revolted.
The Africans didn't win their freedom until two years later, when the Supreme Court decided that they were illegally held as slaves. The importation of slaves had been abolished in the United States in 1808.
"Two hundred years later, we stand today to emphasize how important it is that we remain vigilant in the defense of liberty and freedom, in this country and around the world," Cummings said. "Racial injustice is a disease that still threatens us to this very day."
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 October 2008 )
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Wojtek (Voytec) Wacowski
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Wednesday, 27 August 2008 |
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 While combing today the web for "Amistadiana" I have noticed that online edition of British Times magazine reminded their readers that on August 26th "In 1839 the US Navy seized the Cuban schooner Amistad off Long Island, New York, which led to a legal ruling upholding the right of illegally enslaved Africans to mutiny on board a slave ship. " It seems that the Amistad's visits in Liverpool, Bristol and London left some traces...
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Wojtek (Voytec) Wacowski
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Sunday, 24 August 2008 |
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  Captain Bill Pinkney, master emeritus of the Freedom Schooner Amistad, talks about the historical significance of Barack Obama and the upcoming Democratic Convention during an interview.
Bill Pinkney is master emeritus of the Amistad. But that's just one of many identities he's lived in his 72 years. Chicagoan-turned-Nutmegger. Navy man. Around-the-world sailor. And a black American who's seen much of the racial struggles of his country...
Read the original article published by Hartford Courant on Aug. 24th, 2008. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 September 2008 )
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Ann S. Kim - Portland Press Herald
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Saturday, 16 August 2008 |
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 The Amistad pulled up to the Maine State Pier on Thursday afternoon, ready to begin its stint as a floating classroom in Portland for the next week.
 The visit is part of an 18-month journey commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trades in the United Kingdom and the United States. The United Kingdom outlawed the trade in 1807 and the United States followed the next year, although slavery was still practiced.
Amistad's 14,000-mile voyage retraced the routes of the slave trade. The ship set sail last year in Connecticut, traveled to England and Portugal, and then to Sierra Leone, where captives of the original La Amistad eventually returned. The ship visited other spots in Africa before sailing across the Atlantic to Barbados and U.S. ports.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 18 August 2008 )
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by By DAVID JACKSON - Provincial Reporter
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Tuesday, 29 July 2008 |
For Black Loyalist descendants, it’s time to revel in their heritage
Haley Cox, 22, of Shelburne, leans on a piling in front of the tall ship Amistad docked at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax on Monday. Ms. Cox is a crew member of the Amistad, which is in town for Black Loyalist 225 celebrations. (PETER PARSONS / Staff) | 
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NINA AND HALEY Cox’s ancestors were part of the first large community of free black people in North America, in Shelburne County, but they only learned that history in recent years.
Now the sisters, descendants of black Loyalists, are hoping people across the province will brush up on the landing as the celebration of Black Loyalist 225 kicks off today.
"It is a history a lot of people don’t know about, especially the black Loyalist (descendants) themselves," Nina Cox, 19, said Monday at a news conference in Halifax.
"The past year or two, three years, I’ve really grown to be connected to my roots."
More than 3,000 black Loyalists came to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, slaves lured by promises of freedom and Crown land if they fled their masters. The largest group of them — 2,500 — ended up in Birchtown, according to the Black Loyalist Heritage Society’s website.
But many of them didn’t get the land the British promised, or if they did, it was often unsuitable for farming. Some were forced to work for extremely low wages or even become slaves again.
Hundreds left Nova Scotia in the next decade for Sierra Leone, where they helped establish Freetown, now the West African country’s capital.
Ms. Cox and her sister both said they learned about their roots while working at the Black Loyalist Museum in Birchtown. Their interest in their history led them to stints aboard the Freedom Schooner Amistad, which has been in Halifax as part of a journey retracing a 19th-century slave trade route. The Amistad heads to Shelburne next week.
It’s a recreation of the Spanish ship La Amistad, which became famous in 1839 after 53 Africans were kidnapped from West Africa and taken to Cuba. They rose up and took control of the ship, but the U.S. navy seized it off the coast of New York about two months later.
It was taken to Connecticut, where the Africans were charged with mutiny and murder. John Quincy Adams, who had earlier served as U.S. president, successfully argued their case before the United States Supreme Court and, in 1841, 35 survivors were returned to Africa.
Black Loyalist 225 also features the one-woman play A New Hope, performed by actress and singer Shelley Hamilton, a Cherry Brook native, now based in Toronto, and also a black Loyalist descendant.
In it, Ms. Hamilton shares the true story of slave Lydia Jackson. It’s a reprise of the role she played 25 years ago in a high school play called Freedom, which garnered national recognition.
The play features a song Ms. Hamilton said she learned from her great-great-great-grandfather, through material archived by Helen Creighton, who interviewed him more than 60 years ago. Ms. Hamilton said he recounts that he learned the song from his father, who was a slave.
"It’s very emotional for him. It’s emotional for me to hear that emotion and to talk about it," Ms. Hamilton said.
Ms. Hamilton is scheduled to perform the play in both Halifax and Shelburne.
Read the original article published in The Chronicle Herald - Nova Scotia on July 29th, 2008
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by The Canadian Press
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Monday, 28 July 2008 |
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 HALIFAX, NS — When Haley and Nina Cox set sail on the Amistad they knew they were in for the journey of a lifetime, but the sisters didn't expect they would be raising awareness about a lesser-known chapter of Canadian history.
As student volunteers on a re-creation of the historic schooner, they helped educate people about the history of the slave trade and encountered questions about their own heritage.
"I met lots of people of African descent in the United States who didn't know anything about people of African descent living (in Nova Scotia)," said Haley Cox, 20, of Shelburne, N.S.
"It's pretty new to some people, this whole story of the Black Loyalists."
The Cox sisters are descendants of a group of more than 3,000 blacks who arrived in the province in 1783. The former slaves were granted their freedom by the British in exchange for siding with England during the American Revolution.
Now the Cox sisters and others in Nova Scotia are hoping to shed light on the story of the Black Loyalists as celebrations begin Tuesday marking the 225th anniversary of their arrival in the province.
The Amistad is part of those celebrations and will be in Halifax harbour until Aug. 5, when it sails to Shelburne.
The community of Birchtown, near Shelburne, was the largest free black community outside of Africa in the 1780s.
The British had promised land and provisions to the Black Loyalists in addition to their freedom, but few received any benefits.
After struggling for nine years to survive in Nova Scotia, nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists decided to make a fresh start and boarded 15 ships bound for Sierra Leone, where they helped establish Freetown, the capital of the country, as a haven for freed slaves.
The captain emeritus of the Amistad, Bill Pinkney, says that exodus by the Black Loyalists plays an important role in the story of the Amistad.
In 1839, the original Amistad was the site of a rebellion by 54 African-born slaves who demanded to be taken back to their homeland. In a historic human rights court case, the slaves won their freedom in the United States and returned to Freetown.
"(The Amistad) is part of the Sierra Leone connection which started here in Halifax," Pinkney said.
The present-day Amistad was built in the 1990s and sails the world with a crew and student volunteers like the Cox sisters.
Nina Cox, 19, spent three months on board the ship earlier this year, and Haley is still with the ship. The sisters agree the experience has helped connect them with their heritage.
Nina said she hopes the anniversary will do the same for other Nova Scotians.
"I hope this celebration will open people's eyes to the history," she said.
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Amistad In The Media - 2008
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Written by Robyn Young - Metronews.ca
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Monday, 28 July 2008 |
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 Teens from across the country will get diversity training and a chance to pick up a few sailing skills on board the Freedom Schooner Amistad this week.
Amistad is docked in Halifax Harbour until Aug. 7, marking the end of a world tour that began in Halifax last summer. Over the past year, the captain and crew have travelled to England, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Barbados, Charleston, South Carolina, and back to Nova Scotia.
The Atlantic Freedom Tour commemorates the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in the former British Empire and the United States.
Capt. John Beebe-Center and his crew of 14 kicked off the education portion of their visit in Halifax last Friday by hosting a group of teens from Toronto who have been guests in Halifax over the past two weeks for the 25th anniversary of the Africville reunion.
This week more groups from across the country will climb aboard.
“They’ll come to the museum (Maritime Museum of the Atlantic) and do some training in the morning and then come for a sail in the afternoon,” Beebe-Center said yesterday.
They’ll learn the history of the end of the slave trade, and enough sailing skills for a three-hour cruise, he said.
Read original article published in Metro - Halifax on July 28th, 2008
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 August 2008 )
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 "Haley Cox, 22, of Shelburne, leans on a piling in front of the tall ship Amistad docked at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax on Monday. Ms. Cox is a crew member of the Amistad, which is in town for Black Loyalist 225 celebrations. (PETER PARSONS / Staff)</p>")
