When the Freedom Schooner Amistad departed the Georgetown Landing Marina after a two-week stop in November, there was a sense that the entire community had experienced something it would never forget.

Coastal Carolina University President Ronald R. Ingle aboard the Amistad.

The Amistad visit successfully fulfilled Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle’s hopes for an event combining education and community dialogue. “People of all ages and backgrounds visited the ship,” said Ingle, who initiated the idea of inviting the Amistad to Georgetown, “and they left with a better understanding of our shared history.”

A total of 18,650 people visited the Freedom Schooner Amistad at the Georgetown Landing Marina from Nov. 3 to Nov. 14. During the ship’s stay in Georgetown, 6,670 school children from throughout the state (an average of 667 students per weekday), as well as 11,981 other visitors went aboard the Amistad. Saturday, Nov. 11 was the busiest single day, with 2,189 visitors boarding the ship between 9 a.m. and dusk. Among the visitors who signed the Amistad guest register were vacationers from as far away as Canada, Ireland, England, and the Netherlands.

Captain Bill Pinkney

Amistad Captain Bill Pinkney says that the Georgetown visit has served as a model for other communities hosting the ship. “Community involvement is a key component in the mission and purpose of the Freedom Schooner Amistad,” said Pinkney. “Thanks to the hard work of many volunteer committees, the Amistad initiated a series of truly meaningful and community-building events during its stay in Georgetown.”

The Freedom Schooner Amistad is a replica of the cargo ship on which 53 enslaved Africans revolted against their captors in 1839, precipitating a seminal episode in the struggle for civil rights in America.

For more information about the Amistad, visit www.amistadamerica.org.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

God, you too have a dream. You dream that we, your human creatures, will come to realize that you created us for community, for togetherness, for friendship, for gentleness, for caring, for sharing, for family; that we are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, where there are no outsiders, none on the fringes, but ALL are insiders – black and white, red and yellow, rich and poor, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, people of every faith and of none, that we belong together, and that we share a common humanity created in your own image . . . But we have so frequently shattered your dream. We have bought and sold our sisters and brothers, treating them and owning them as if they were things. You have wept as we, your children, have sought to wipe out whole peoples in acts of genocide and holocausts . . . and we have unleashed acts of unbelievable horror and terror on members of your family, our family, as happened here so recently.

Forgive us, God, for our blindness. Fill us anew with your grace, open our eyes that we may see the other as your child too, as our sister, our brother. Let us help you to realize your dream and then there will be peace and laughter and joy, and gentleness and caring and sharing, justice and forgiveness and reconciliation and love and life.

Oh let it be so, let it be so, let it be so… .

Amen, Amen, Amen.

This prayer was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the occasion of the visit of the Freedom Schooner Amistad to Georgetown, S.C., and was delivered by Archbishop Tutu’s friend, the Rev. James Fenhagan of Georgetown, for the ecumenical service on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2001.