Riding the Waves With a Message of Freedom

For Bill Pinkney, a black man who sailed the world, the sea is the great equalizer, the schooner Amistad its great ambassador.

Pinkney is the newly named captain of the Amistad, the under-construction reproduction of the 19th century sailing ship, whose 53 African captives revolted in 1839. Those captives eventually won their freedom in a long court battle that began in Connecticut.

“The great thing about the sea is that it is about the only place in America where everyone, regardless of your station, background or economics, is absolutely equal, because the sea does not care who you are or where you are from,” Pinkney said. “A 50-foot wave will not ask you whether you carry Visa or American Express.”

A perfect platform, then, for the Amistad, which is being built at Mystic Seaport as a floating educational resource to tell the inspirational story of the Amistad incident and carry a message of cooperation among the races.

“I think Amistad can help,” Pinkney said. “It’s a symbol. It makes people look at the past. It makes people look at the potential for the future. And it keeps bringing up a lot of things we just have to keep bringing up until we get it right.”

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A Chicago native, Pinkney, 64, joined the U.S. Naval Reserve at 17 and entered active duty at 21, rising to hospital corpsman first class. The sea has been a constant in his life ever since.

After the service, he lived in Puerto Rico in the 1950s for 2 1/2 years. It was not until he moved to New York, however, that he formally learned to sail and, in 1977, bought his own sailboat. He was a marketing executive for Revlon and other cosmetics companies during the 1970s and 1980s, and sailed in his free time.

But in his early 50s, he realized that it was time to fulfill his dream of a great adventure: He would sail around the world alone.

In August 1990, Pinkney set sail from Boston and circumnavigated the world in a 47-foot sailboat, taking the southerly route around all five of the world’s capes. He arrived back in Boston in June 1992, having traveled 32,000 miles in 259 sailing days. Pinkney became the first black and one of a handful of living sailors to accomplish the feat.

The Amistad is scheduled to be launched in March, and its maiden voyage is scheduled for July. The Amistad’s first year will be concentrated in Connecticut, and then it will visit other ports in the U.S. and eventually other countries. It will carry students who will work with the professional crew.

“It carries a lesson to all who see it, I feel, based on what they bring to it, positive or negative,” Pinkney said. “I think it can squelch the lie, empower the striver and cause the uncommitted to think. If it can do that, I think the messages become as many as the people who cross its decks.

“We don’t want people to come off the ship saying, ‘That was a nice boat.’ We want them to come off and think.”