CAPTAIN WILLIAM PINKNEY. . .

1st African American to Sail Around the World

Sailor-adventurer Bill Pinkney has carved out his role in history. In 1992, this Chicago native became the first Black man to sail solo around the world, taking the southern route around the five great capes, through waters considered to be the most dangerous on the globe. Pinkney’s accomplishment was the result of five years of preparations. He even had to sell his idea to others to get financing for equipment and supplies for the 27,000 mile voyage.

He received help from a navy friend, Bill Cosby, who gave him references which proved to be fruitful. By conducting a letter-writing campaign and getting donations, he raised approximately $400,000. He also received equipment from Motorola to assist in the voyage. Alone, on his 47-foot sailboat named Commitment, on August 5, 1990, he left Boston Harbor. Two years later, after having faced various maritime hardships and also having docked in five ports for food and supplies along the way, on June 9, 1992, he docked in Boston.

In November 1998, he embarked on a second trip, setting sail from the Caribbean on an historic voyage to retrace the “Middle Passage” slave trade routes used during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A charismatic, naturally gifted speaker and storyteller, Pinkney is now inspiring audiences nationwide with the story of his two remarkable voyages.

Pinkney’s five-month-long Middle Passage journey took him, his three-person crew, and a rotating group of 25 American schoolteachers, to six countries—Puerto Rico, Brazil, Ghana, Senegal, and the United States. They traveled together on his 80-foot sail boat, and the teachers on board created hands-on teaching materials for schools across America.

Pinkney’s Middle Passage journey was a journey of personal discovery, as was his 1992 trip. At the core of his quest was to visit those African countries from where his slave ancestors left in chains, most never to return. “I’m a descendant of those who came in the hold . . . now having ascended to the wheel,” says Pinkney. “I think . . . getting on an airplane and flying to Senegal, flying to Ghana, it’s not the same as taking an ocean voyage knowing that the waters over which you pass contain the bodies of those who refused to leave the continent, and found the only way out was to go overboard.”

The trip has been captured in a national prime-time PBS documentary, “Voyages Home.” The preparations for the voyage, as well as a profile of Pinkney himself, were featured in a PBS documentary that aired on public television during the spring of 1999. These PBS programs are companions to an innovative multimedia Middle Passage educational initiative, the highlight of which were the teams of teachers that accompanied Pinkney on each leg of the voyage. Their job was to help create curriculum materials for distribution to classrooms all across the country. Among the other educational projects were videos that were shot during the trip for use by teachers and students; student interaction with Pinkney via telephone and e-mail; live Internet broadcasts; an interactive Web site; teacher guidebooks; and an exhibit on Pinkney created and hosted by Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry called “Winds of Change: Africa, The Americas, and the Sea.” The principal sponsors of the educational projects associated with Pinkney’s voyage were Ford Motor Company, IBM, Abbott Laboratories, 3Com, and the U.S. Postal Service, Great Lakes Area.

At the age of 69, Pinkney left his job as a marketing representative for Revlon to sail 27,000 miles around the world solo in a 22-month-long voyage in 1991-92. An established yacht racer, he was first motivated to make the trip as a way of encouraging his young grandchildren to understand the importance of education, and to learn such values as personal responsibility, perseverance, and commitment.

His project evolved into a corporate-sponsored enterprise that became a “floating classroom” for thousands of American schoolchildren. He named his boat Commitment, and through his courageous journey, became a living symbol of the adage, “Never give up on your dreams.” The trip was covered in a WCVB Boston special that earned a Peabody Award, and it also inspired the documentary film, The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney, narrated by Bill Cosby.

Pinkney continued his voyages as Master of the Freedom Schooner, Amistad. The vessel is a reproduction of the 129 foot ship, and was built in Mystic, Connecticut both as a tribute to the Amistad’s African captives who mutinied for freedom, which they eventually won in a legal battle in the Supreme Court, and also as a floating classroom for the African-American story. After captaining the ship since its launch in 2000, he retired from the helm in November of 2003 to write and speak of his adventures. A special thanks to Captain Pinkney for this article.

Reprint permission from www.bstmllc.com n