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The 85-foot schooner, will be the centerpiece of several events promoting racial good will.
By JON WILSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 15, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- A replica of a 19th century ship whose slave passengers revolted and won a landmark human rights case will visit St. Petersburg this fall.
The Amistad, owned by the Connecticut-based educational group Amistad America, will dock at the Pier Oct. 27 through Nov. 3, and again Dec. 15-22, event organizers say.
The 85-foot schooner, which has been touring ports as a seagoing ambassador since its launching two years ago, will be the centerpiece of several events promoting racial good will.
Elementary and middle school students will undertake special studies before touring the ship, said Randy Lightfoot, who works with the Pinellas County school district's African-American curriculum.
In conjunction with the visit, the National Conference of Community and Justice is planning public forums to discuss freedom, slavery and race relations, said Roy Kaplan, director of the NCCJ's St. Petersburg chapter.
"This fits right in with our mission," Kaplan said.
A multicultural festival is planned for the Pier Nov. 2-3, and gospel superstar Shirley Caesar is scheduled to sing at a welcoming concert Oct. 27 at the Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center.
The Samaritan Corp., a nonprofit group based in St. Petersburg and Ocala, is helping sponsor the visit.
"The purpose is to promote racial harmony and to expose other ethnic groups to other cultures. That's our vision, that's our hope," said the Rev. Joseph Harvey, the Samaritan Corp. director. Harvey is associate pastor at Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church in St. Petersburg.
Managing the event is Class Act Downtown, which helped put on the Tall Ships Festival this summer.
The Amistad visit's budget is about $150,000, said David Calametti, Class Act's chief executive officer. He said he is counting on corporate sponsorships to pay the freight, with some help from modest admission fees.
St. Petersburg city government will provide some services, but no money, he said.
Official student groups will be able to tour the ship for free. General public admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children.
The budget includes $37,500 to pay for the ship's visit. The money is used to maintain the vessel, said Marge Kuhlmann, spokeswoman for Amistad America, whose headquarters are in New Haven, Conn.
"It's a wooden ship, so it does require a fair amount of maintenance," Kuhlmann said. "It supports crew salaries and their food. The ship, since it was launched, is almost continuously on the move. Things break down."
The ship was built using techniques common to 19th century wooden schooners. Among those who helped build it were descendants of Sengbe Pieh, who led the shipboard revolt.
The saga of the Amistad and its passengers is celebrated in a Steven Spielberg movie. But historians in Connecticut and at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University began documenting the story long before the 1997 film.
In 1839, 53 Africans were kidnapped from what is now Sierra Leone, sold as slaves and taken to Cuba. While they were being shipped to another part of Cuba, they took over the ship, which eventually was seized by a United States revenue cutter and taken to port in New London, Conn.
The Africans were jailed and charged with murder. But former President John Quincy Adams argued successfully on their behalf before the Supreme Court, and in 1841, 35 surviving slaves were returned to Africa.
The case came to be considered a legal milestone, and the Amistad replica is viewed as a vehicle for educating people about African-Americans' struggle for equal rights.
"When we started out with this, we really had no expectations. We knew we had a good idea, and that it should go well. But it has exceeded any expectations we might have had," said William Pinkney, the Amistad's 67-year-old captain.
Pinkney is an accomplished sailor. He is credited with being the first African-American, and the fourth American overall, to sail solo around the globe using the treacherous Cape Horn route. It was a two-year voyage he began in 1990.
As Amistad captain, he said he has seen more than 250,000 people visit the ship.
"Some people are moved to tears," he said.