Amistad replica a floating classroom on racial justice

True to their mission, leaders of Discovering Amistad are learning from history.

Since its inception in 2000, the Amistad — an 81-foot replica (129 feet overall) of the original schooner that was the setting for the 1839 uprising that was foundational to both the state’s history and judicial precedent around slavery — has served as a floating classroom for lessons on racial oppression gleaned from those events.

The programs look at history, connect it to present events and bring students and others onboard for hands-on experiences. The interest remains strong in the story of Sengbe Pieh, also known as Cinque, an African captive who served as leader of the Amistad Rebellion in 1839.

“There has been a demand for what we’re trying to teach,” said Len Miller, chairman of Discovering Amistad’s board of directors. “The remnants of slavery are still with us today, and that’s what we point out.”

Miller said when his organization took ownership of the ship five years ago that no one involved knew how high the level of interest in instances of racial injustice and racism would be in the following years. If anything, current events have made the organization’s mission more relevant, he said.

Miller said the organization’s educational programming addresses landmark racial justice issues and conflicts such as the Dred Scott decision, the Emancipation Proclamation,

reconstruction, Jim Crow, integration and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but the discussion does not end there.

“We’re still plodding our way through, and what we teach the kids is a lot of the issues: if you want to talk George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, we’ll talk about those things and talk about them in the historic perspective,” he said.

The ship’s crew and educators travel with her — Miller said Discovering Amistad educators ordinarily will give three lessons in classrooms to students before inviting them on the ship for a fourth and final lesson, usually a three-hour sail on the ship.

“You can talk about slavery, but until you use the inhumanity of what that was to the Mende people — 53 people on a ship meant for sleeping maybe 12 at most — you might not understand,” Miller said.

Discovering Amistad formed in 2015 as a nonprofit to take over ownership of the Amistad after the ship was placed into receivership by the state. The ship’s prior owner, the nonprofit Amistad America Inc., ran into financial troubles and lost its taxexempt status because of poor management and book keeping.

That is one way the current organization is learning from and hopefully improving upon history, Miller said.

“I think that’s all behind us,” he said.

He said the ship had not been properly maintained and it “broke the heart of the master shipbuilder” at Mystic Seaport who supervised | the construction of the ship for five years “to see the same ship come back in pretty terrible condition.”

“A wooden boat, even if it’s brand new, in salt water needs constant, yearly maintenance,” Miller said. “You’ll spend $50,000 to $100,000 every year for woodwork, caulking, bottom work, hauling it out. Once you neglect that, and they did, and it had been, we could see maybe seven to eight years since they’d done any meaningful annual maintenance, it piles up.”

Some of the damage was rotting between floorboards too wide to fix with caulking, and both the engines and a mast needed to be replaced.

Additionally, Miller said the boat required some adjustments to expand the classroom offerings. Although the ship has traveled up and down the coast, he said the ship is inhibited from reaching the Hartford area because of a bridge in Middletown that is too low to clear. Lowering a mast is “easier said than done,” he said.

During the restoration efforts, Miller said Mystic Seaport officials reached out to the organization about a collaboration.

“They were not engaged or involved in racial and social justice, but they wanted to be,” he said. “We brought the ship to Mystic and started doing dockside education.”

Peter Armstrong, who joined Mystic Seaport as its president this year, said the ship “adds to the overall visitor experience” when it is docked there.

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