Table of Contents 

• Editorial: Professor Gloria Emeagwali and Professor Olusegun Sogunro

• The Amistad: A Sierra Leonean  Narrative - Syl Coker-Cheney

 Editorial

The Amistad Lecture and Banquet is organized yearly by the Amistad Committee, an affiliate of the Africana Center, as part of the Black History Month activities. In 2010, the Provost and Vice President, Dr. Carl Lovitt declared the Amistad Lecture and Banquet as the signature event of Black History Month activities at Central Connecticut State University.

At present, it consists of five members, namely, Professor Beverly Johnson (English); Professor Fumilayo Showers (Sociology); Professor Dann Broyld (History), Professor Olusegun Sogunro (Ed. Leadership) and Professor Gloria Emeagwali (History). Other than the first lecture which was held in November 2003, subsequent lectures and banquets have been held in February as part of the Black History Month activities. The Amistad events of 1839 and the aftermath constituted the most famous landmark slavery case in the U.S., setting the stage for freedom, social justice, and equality.

Among other things, the Amistad Committee is committed to organizing the lecture series in order to preserve and protect the history and legacy of the Amistad; honor the experience of the captives aboard the Amistad; and relate the events to the universal aspirations for human dignity and freedom. The aim is also to foster intellectual inquiry relating to the events of the Amistad and reflect on human capabilities to recover from traumatic experiences, misfortune and calamities. We also hope to contribute educational resources related to Black Studies, in general, and Amistad Studies, in particular.

The Amistad saga which spanned 1839-1842, involved the illegal capturing of fifty three Africans, especially from Sierra-Leone, their enslavement in Cuba, a bloody revolt aboard the Amistad ship, and a landmark trial in Connecticut which finally set free the captives and facilitated their return to Sierra-Leone, their homeland.

During the trial of the captives in Connecticut courts, especially Hartford, some human rights activists in the state offered humanitarian assistance and gave a helping hand to the survivors of this traumatic event. Notably, the town of Farmington played a prominent role in the rehabilitation of the Amistad victims.

The committee has been actively involved in organizing and coordinating the events, and bringing renowned scholars to the University. The distinguished scholars are also granted the Amistad Award in honor of their outstanding research and direct and indirect contributions to the field of study.

To date, the following lectures have been delivered:

• February 24, 2015. Twelfth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet, held at the Alumni Hall, Student Center, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “The AMISTAD Revolt: A Sierra Leonean Narrative”
  Distinguished Scholar: Professor Syl Cheney-Coker: Poet, Novelist, Journalist; Winner of the 1991 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize; Winner of the Folon Nicols Award; Winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Short Story’s Prize ; Writer -in-Residence in several universities; Professor at James Madison University.

• February 26, 2014. Eleventh Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet, held at the Alumni Hall, Student Center, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “The AMISTAD: Gender and the Struggle for Human Rights”
  Distinguished Scholar:  Dr. Obioma Nnemeka.
  Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor, Professor of French, Women’s Studies & African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA.

• February 28, 2012. Ninth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Rm., CCSU
  Lecture: “The Life and Times of the Amistad Returnees to Sierra Leone and Their Impact: A Pluridisciplinary Exploration”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Abdul Karim Bangura .
  PhD Linguistics, Georgetown University; PhD Political Science, Howard University; PhD Development Economics, University of Maryland; PhD Computer Science, and PhD Mathematics, Columbus University.
  Professor of Research Methodology and Political Science at Howard University, Washington DC & Author of 65 books and more than 550 scholarly articles; former President & United Nations Ambassador of the Association of Third World Studies

• February 22, 2011. Eighth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet Founders  Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “The Legacy of the AMISTAD Revolution: Lessons for the 21st Century”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Iyunolu F. Osagie
  Associate Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, & Author, “The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone”

• February 23, 2010. Seventh Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Torp Theater, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “The Relevance of the AMISTAD to the Ralph Bunche, Wangari Maathai, & Barack Obama Nobels”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College, New York & Co-Editor of Jenda, Journal of African Culture & Women Studies.

• February 24, 2009. Sixth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “The African Struggle for Empowerment: From AMISTAD to Barack Obama”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, President of the (U.S.) African Studies Association, Head of the Department of African American Studies, Professor of African American Studies and History and the Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago

• February 26, 2008. Fifth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “Breaking the Chains”. 
  Distinguished Scholar: Runoko Rashidi, World Traveler & Pan-Africanist Scholar, San Antonio, TX

• February 27, 2007. Fourth Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.  
  Lecture: “The Amistad Legacy: Reflections on the Spaces of Colonization”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Toyin Falola, the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin, TX.

• February 28, 2006. Third Annual Amistad Lecture & Banquet held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.  
  Lecture: “The Amistad and Human Rights”
  Distinguished Scholar: Amii Omara-Otunnu, D. Phil. (Oxon.), UNESCO Chair-holder in Comparative Human Rights, Executive Director, UConn-ANC Partnership, Professor of History, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.

• February 3, 2005. Second Annual Amistad Lecture held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “Human Rights and the Challenge of Forging a New Social Consensus: Lessons from the Amistad Case”.
  Distinguished Scholar: Adetoun Olabisi Ilumoka, LLM:  An activist Human Rights Lawyer, Principal Partner: AO ILUMOKA and Associates Consultancy Services, Lagos, Nigeria; Visiting Scholar, Center for Africana Studies, CCSU; Formerly Visiting Scholar, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University.

• November 14, 2003. First Annual Amistad Lecture held at the Founders Hall, Davidson Building and Constitution Room, Memorial Hall, Central Connecticut State University.
  Lecture: “Amistad and Education in The African Diaspora”
  Distinguished Scholar: Dr. Alfred B. Zack-Williams: Professor of Sociology, University of Central Lancaster, United Kingdom.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali, Chief Editor and Professor Olusegun Sogunro

THE AMISTAD: A Sierra Leonean  Narrative

Syl Coker-Cheney
2015 Recipient of the AMISTAD Award, CCSU

I would like to begin this homage with one of the most contentious issues in contemporary politics and poetry. I do this because tradition suggests that when you invite a writer to speak at a pre or post- prandial event, he or she should show that the wine and dinner are deeply appreciated. I intend to do just that!

For a long time there was, and still is, the belief that sometime during the Second World War, to inspire English resistance against the Nazis, Winston Churchill quoted some lines from the famous sonnet, If We Must Die, by the great Jamaican Harlem Renaissance poet Claude Mackay. Let us recall some of the memorable lines from this great sonnet.

'If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark their mad and hungry dogs. If we must die, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain.  Then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honour us though dead.

Oh, Kinsmen, we must meet the common foe.

Now, some contemporary scholars, black and white, but especially people of Caribbean descent, insist, without any prevarication, that Churchill did quote from Mackay, during a moment of great oratory in the House of Commons.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the disbelievers: those who say that at no time did Churchill quote from Claude Mackay; especially not from a poem that owes its genesis to the race riots of 1919, during the so-called Red Scare and Red Summer. But the contentious argument lacks the morality of eloquence and importance: whether Churchill used it or not did not advance the greatness of the poem, nor did it add to its epic grandeur. For in its bold, assertive statement about

This year, Britain is marking the 5Oth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. While celebrations are taking place, some contemporary historians have taken the opportunity to revisit Churchill's views on race and freedom. Looking at some of his speeches, it is clear that Churchill had some very unsavory views about so-called people of color.

For instance, in 19 37, he told the Palestine Royal Commission:
 “I do not believe for instance that a great wrong   has been done to the Red Indian of America or the   Black people of Australia.  I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher race, a more worldly wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. “

This was strong, imperial and sickening stuff that was politically very correct, very common, in his day. It was the age of imperial arrogance and conceit. But although we are often reminded not to speak evil of the dead, I cannot, like most black writers, help wondering whether Churchill did, indeed, use the famous sonnet by the grandson of a slave, to rally the English- a so-called higher grade race- as they were being pummeled by another so-called worldly wise race.

One thing we are all certain about, one incontestable narrative of history, something that was to shape the language of freedom, humanity, and justice, and create a discord between two nations is this:

None of those men, women or children believed in the idea of subjugation; the unpalatable notion by a group of men, who, for the simple fact that they had guns, felt they could chain and brutalize other members of our small world. So, on that cold night, convinced that they were about to be killed and eaten, one of the youngest members of that group, whose name was  Kinna, conveyed his suspicions to a big, sagacious man in the group.

The conversation went like this:
Kinna: 'We feel bad, what are we to do?'

The older man replied: 'let me think about it for a while; if we do not do something we shall be killed. We may as well die trying to be free than for all of us to be killed and eaten.'

As we all know, the name of that man is of course Sengbe Pieh. I have refrained from calling him Cinque, an illegal, gilded hallucination of conquest and ownership that his so-called owner had tried to stamp on him, when Sengbe was in chains. (Some has suggested that the name was hispanized to make it easy for the captors to pronounce)

Now the plot begins: the translucent power of the mind to respond to an injustice; something that leads to the ritual of   revolt in all of us! One could even argue that the genius of revolt is present in nearly every individual: it takes only a spark of outrage to bring it to the surface, when, as I said, our humanity is denigrated and assaulted.

Throughout history, there have been several occasions when men and women have felt that genius of revolt tearing at their insides, to which they must respond not only for themselves, but for others. Who can forget Joan of Arc, Patrick Henry, those women in Western Nigeria, led by the formidable Fumilayo Ransome Kuti, who in the late 1930's stormed the palace of the Alake or King of Abeokuta, because of his despotism; who can forget the Aba Women who rose against the exploitative colonial tax system? There were many, many others like them. We owe a lot to these brave people.

Sitting in that dark hold on that miserable night, in August,1839, contemplating what to do, Sengbe Pieh was unaware that the action he was about to take would become one of the most memorable and sustained narratives about the contemporary struggle between good and evil. How could he have foreseen that his action would lead to a long diplomatic argument between the USA and Spain; that it would bring an ex-president out of retirement and propel him into universal greatness, after he had made one of the most moving speeches in front of the United States Supreme Court at that time?

The incredible thing about the mind of Sengbe Pieh was how similar his words were to the sentiment expressed in Claude Mackay's great sonnet. Like MacKay, Sengbe Pieh did not want his country men and women to die an inglorious death. He wanted them to die only after, or during, an act of courage in dignity, with their heads held high!  But we shouldn't be surprised by his sagacity: After all, unknown to his captors, Sengbe Pieh came from a proud people with a long, beautiful narrative tradition; he was the product of a society with a complex, time-tested judicial system:  one with an understanding of how the cosmos works.  So, we could assume that before deciding to act, he must have delved into some form of historical analysis about man's destiny; most likely he called upon his deities, and prayed to them, although of course, at that time, his captors, like many of their kind, were convinced that people like Sengbe came from a world without any claim to civilization!

One thing Sengbe Pieh was sure of was this:  he had to act. The question of whether he succeeded or not was immaterial: as events happen in history, one moment dissolves into another; and our fate is either transformed into sanguine greatness or reduced to pitiful mediocrity! Whatever the result, he would leave that to historians. Luckily for us, he did not fail.

What kind of a man was Sengbe Pieh? I am sure we are all familiar with various descriptions of him; but the one I like the most, the one for which he has been honoured and continues to be so celebrated, is this one in the New Haven Daily Herald, when the Africans first appeared in court,   charged  with  mutiny on the Amistad :

Another reporter had this to say about him: 
‘‘This Cinque is one of those spirits who appear but seldom. Possessing far more sagacity and courage than his race generally do, he has been accustomed to command. His lips are thicker and more turned up than those of his race in general, but when opened display a set of teeth rivaling in beauty the most regular of those which we praise so much in Caucasian beauty.  His general deportment is free from levity and many white men might take a lesson in dignity and forbearance from the African Chieftain.”

Strong stuff, mixed blessings: all we can do is wonder what Sengbe Pieh would have made of it, if only he could read the newspaper. For me, this was the beginning of what is undoubtedly a great Sierra Leonean narrative: a journey into the evolution and affirmation of a national consciousness; something worthy of a national epic: one that Sierra Leoneans should celebrate with pride and gratitude. For there were other acts of refusal by Africans to be condemned and sold as chattel slaves in the Americas; but they failed, and the leaders paid a terrible price for their audacity. Some of us will no doubt recall that, exactly eight years before Sengbe Pieh's revolt on the Amistad, a larger, more organized rebellion by slaves had taken place on American soil, which was to become part of the American literary canon. On August 22, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia, a black preacher named Nat Turner had staged a violent rebellion against slavery. We all know, from his so-called confessions, after the rebellion was brutally put down, and before he was executed in a most brutal and inhumane manner, that Turner had received a series of religious revelations urging him to revolt.  There were other, more violent rebellions in the Americas; but besides Turner's legend, the other figure of importance to me, was perhaps the Haitian Francois Mackandal: a man variously described as a Guinean or Senegalese Moslem, who had been snatched from his homeland, and taken to Haiti. He was called a great hougan or maroon, who instructed slaves in Santa Domingo in the art of making poisons, to kill their masters and help bring about the liberation of slaves.

And so, we have three historical figures whose actions helped to shape our narratives about freedom and dignity during the slave period. With great pride, Haitians can point to the legendary figures of Toussaint L' Ouverture, Dessalines, and Henri Christophe as the liberators of their nation, but those in the know always recall the actions of Francois Mackandal, in the same way that Kenyans might celebrate the figure of Dedan Kimathi.  And for some African-American scholars, Nat Turner is undoubtedly a major figure of American history and literature. The question then is why has Sengbe Pieh not been celebrated with the same reverence in his own country? Why has it been left to the good people of this state, to erect a monument to his memory?

Perhaps, it has to do with the way we, as Sierra Leoneans, see ourselves in the diasporic narrative of slavery, freedom and identity; how our historical responses and compositions, our direct involvement in the umbilicus of that narrative are not part of contemporary scholarship. Be it the writings by Caribbean writers of Haiti, Trinidad or Cuba, or the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance and other expressions of what Dubois had called the souls of Black people, there is so much to recall and celebrate, so much  we should be proud to  talk about. Bu when it comes to the Amistad, it would appear that the short­ lived importance of so much of Sierra Leone's contemporary narrative ( by which I mean the past fifty-four years ) has tended to overshadow the far more intrinsic and rewarding narratives of the pre- independence period . How else do we explain the unbelievable reality that we tend to canonize the present and abandon the past in a comedic ritual of political subservience?

Then one day, when I was home, some fifteen months ago, I saw that, shockingly, the homage to one of the seminal figures of the Atlantic slave revolts had been pulled down, and replaced with a very crude one, in honour of the current occupant of our presidency.

Now, I am not opposed to colourful masqueraders, the drum majors, portraitists and asho-ebi wearers of any political dispensation wanting to honour their paymasters.  If that is how some people want to express their loyalty, then so be it. But when that public display of fidelity to a current political ideology is a fanfare at the expense of a historical statement so large, so powerful, that it led to a movie by none other than Steven Spielberg, I am sure I am not the only one who took offence at the displacement and the devaluation of a very important diasporic Sierra Leonean narrative that resonated across the ages!

'It is not simply because it is also about black  people, who are enslaved,  formally or not; not even because it is also about the difficulty of establishing communications between whites and black who, in the case of the Amistad, share not a single word or communication, though, that, finally, is  the film 's message. The most important theme is of course the burning and universal need for freedom” 1 (2)

Yes that is what the Amistad is all about, communication by free men and women: how human beings build bridges across the frontiers of cultures, so- called races and colors, and reach for the genuine, triumphant statement about all of us: that we live in a small world, and that our response to challenges, in that prism, must be made with conviction, boldness and courage.

The current Sierra Leonean narrative, if we are so inclined to remember, is one about the reflexes of failed promises, missed opportunities, and recurring mistakes; it is about the attempts at correcting those mistakes, but then plunging, willy-nilly, back into a repetition of those deeds. I need not elaborate: take your pick. With current events as they are in Sierra Leone, it is clear to me that what we need is leadership that is disciplined, bold, and honest: the kind of leadership that   Sengbe Pieh showed when he led that revolt that night. History may yet be kind to Sierra Leoneans in assessing how we have conducted our affairs in the past five decades. I am a writer deeply conscious of a primal responsibility: to write about some of the major and small themes in our lives, and hopefully, get some of us to think about them. But no writer in any part of the world can fail to remember that, as the current ship of uncertainty is drifting from one confusing narrative to the next, perhaps what we need is a return to the old narratives for edification and comfort.

Syl Cheney-Coker - Biography/Curriculum Vitae

Syl Cheney Coker is a poet, novelist, and journalist from Sierra Leone who has spent part of life in exile. He has written poetry, fiction and non-fiction and is a major literary figure in the contemporary era. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oregon, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at the University of the Philippines and University of Maiduguri, Nigeria before becoming a Writer-in Residence at the University of Iowa. The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar remains one of his most distinguished writings. Syl's historical fiction is distinct from other distinguished writers such as Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and Ngugi wa Thiongo. Some critics associate his work with ‘magical realism.’

In one of the 2014 bestseller books, “Emerging Perspectives on Syl Cheney Coker,” Eustace Palmer and Ernest Cole claim that “Syl Cheney-Coker is generally regarded as Sierra Leone’s leading writer. Indeed, he is one of the most accomplished and challenging writers to have emerged from Africa in recent years and his works have deservedly won several literary awards. A versatile artist who excels in both poetry and prose and whose influences range from Africa, to Latin America , to Europe, he is arguably the most prolific, complex, popular and misunderstood poet to have come from Sierra Leone.”

Selected Writings:

• The Road to Jamaica. 1969.

• Concerto for an Exile: Poems. London: Heinemann, 1973.

• The Graveyard Also Has Teeth. London: Heinemann, 1980.

• The Blood in the Desert's Eyes: Poems. London: Heinemann, 1990.

• The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar. London: Heinemann, 1990.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syl_Cheney-Coker

Abridged Annotated Bibliography Materials about Syl Cheney-Coker
By Professor Mark L Lilleleht

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