ALONG THE COLOR LINE — DECEMBER 2005

In 1839, a group of Africans who had been captured by slave traders and were being transported to a Cuban port seized control of the ship. The Spanish schooner “Amistad” eventually landed in the United States. President Martin Van Buren urged that the enslaved Africans be returned to the Spanish authorities.

Former President John Quincy Adams, who was then a member of Congress, was persuaded to argue the case on behalf of the Africans. The Supreme Court, reviewing the evidence, decided to free the Africans on a legal technicality. IN his famous opinion, Associate Justice Joseph Story held that when the revolt on the “Amistad” had taken place, the “free native Africans” had been in effect kidnapped on international waters.

“It is plain, beyond controversy,” Associate Justice Story declared, that the Africans were never the “lawful slaves” of any “Spanish subjects. They are natives of Africa, and were kidnapped there, and were unlawfully transported to Cuba, in violation of the laws and treaties of Spain, and the most solemn edits and declarations of that government. By those laws . . . the African slave-trade is utterly abolished; the dealing in that trade is deemed a heinous crime.” Therefore, Story concluded, the Africans “are declared to be free.”

The “Amistad” incident symbolized the coerced migration of at least fifteen million African people to the Western hemisphere, and the continuation of the slave trade despite its outlawing by both the U.S. and European governments. It illustrated that Africans had a legal and moral right to resist their oppression. It also foreshadowed the inevitable conflict that would soon lead to the American Civil War of 1861-1865. The struggle for black freedom was central to the expansion of an American democracy that potentially could be fully inclusive to all its citizens, regardless of race.

Several years ago, New Jersey State Assemblymen William D. Payne and Craig A. Stanley began a movement in their state calling for the broader recognition that the African-American people had played an “integral part . . . at every turn in this nation’s history.” Payne and Stanley proposed “The Amistad Bill (A1301),” calling on “New Jersey schools to incorporate African-American history into their social studies curriculum.” Passed by the New Jersey legislature in 2002, “The Amistad Bill” created the Amistad Commission, a 22- member body charged with ensuring that the rich heritage and lessons of black America are fully represented and taught throughout the state’s classrooms. The basic insight here is that African-American history is absolutely central to an understanding of American history for every American.

Under the direction of Dr. Karen Jackson-Weaver, the New Jersey Amistad Commission joined with the state’s Education Department in 2005 to initiate the “Amistad Exemplary Practice Award Competition,” which recognizes up to ten exemplary practices in state schools that “take a systematic approach to including the contributions of African-Americans into their curricula.” The Amistad Commission guides and acts as a liaison with textbook publishers, schools, resource organizations, local, state and federal legislators and agencies “to ensure that American history curricula are consistent with the commission’s goals.” The Amistad Commission has begun to inventory all educational materials and curricula that are used for teaching U.S. history in all of New Jersey’s schools, with the goal of integrating African-American history.

In 2005, New York became the second state to pass legislation mandating the integration of African-American history into its social studies curriculum in its state’s schools. Legislators in Illinois are now considering similar legislation. Can we initiate a nationwide educational campaign for incorporating the heritage of black America into every classroom in the United States? The legacy of the “Amistad,” the soul of struggle and sacrifices by African Americans for democracy and freedom, demands nothing less.