Essay Contest Winners Tour Amistad

(Poughkeepsie) - Ten sixth grade students from Poughkeepsie Middle School were invited for a special tour of the Freedom Schooner Amistad last Friday. The Schooner was docked at Waryas Park before heading back to her home port in New Haven for maintenance for the next six months.

The students, Shaun-ti Duckworth, Jennifer Estrada, Trevon Gordon, Jaleel Jackson, George McGue, Tyquan Owens, Dion Pinkey, Shanice Simons, Keith Thompson and Joash Ward, were recently announced as winners of an essay contest sponsored by the City of Poughkeepsie Weed and Seed Initiative to encourage critical dialogue around the Freedom Schooner Amistad.

The essay contest was for sixth graders from Poughkeepsie Middle School and students participating in programs at the Martin Luther King Cultural Center in Beacon. Students were asked to write an essay of up to 250 words explaining why they think it is important today to study the history of the Amistad.

The ten winners from the Poughkeepsie Middle School and the ten winners from the Martin Luther King Cultural Center in Beacon were announced at a program hosted by the Children’s Media Project on October 11. The evening included a screening of the documentary “The Language you Cry In: The Story of a Mende Song.”
Thanks in large part to the efforts of two Vassar faculty members, Rebecca Edwards, chair of the History Department, and Ismail Rashid, chair of the Program in Africana Studies, the Freedom Schooner Amistad docked at Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie as part of its Hudson Valley Freedom Tour.

As the students learned, the Amistad is a reconstruction of a schooner whose West African captives mutinied and seized the ship in 1839. Their intention was to turn the ship around and sail back to Africa, but they were captured and taken into U.S. custody off the coast of Long Island. Their legal battle to win their freedom was the focus of Steven Spielberg's Amistad. Reconstructed and launched in 2000 by Amistad America, Inc., a non-profit organization, the Amistad sails up and down the Eastern seaboard, on the Great lakes, to the Gulf Coast, and to the Caribbean, offering educational and cultural programs to promote racial equality and social justice. The Amistad was open for free public tours, with storytelling, lectures, discussion groups, music, and other activities offered dockside and at nearby locations.

Vassar College was the principal sponsor of the educational component of the Amistad's visit, with support from the offices of the president, dean of the faculty, field work, and religious and spiritual life; the ALANA Center; the History Department; the programs in Africana studies, American culture, and women's studies; and several student organizations, including the VSA, Poder Latino/a, the History Majors Committee, and the Africana Studies Majors Committee. Pictured Above: Essay contest winners from the Poughkeepsie Middle School and the Martin Luther King Cultural Center in Beacon pose for a picture during their tour of the Freedom Schooner Amistad.