DC Parks and Recreation takes part in multicultural event.

(Washington, DC) During the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the Spanish ship, Amistad, will call the Southeast Waterfront area home.

From March 23 to April 7, the Freedom Schooner Amistad will be docked at the Southwest Waterfront, located on Seventh & Water Streets, SW. Activities are planned in conjunction with the ship's stay in Washington.

"We hope that residents take full advantage of the planned interactive events during these two weeks," Neil O. Albert, director of DC Parks and Recreation, said. "Amistad's history is well-documented, but actually standing in its shadow or on its bow is something that a history book cannot recreate."

Kicking off the two-week multicultural event is a welcoming celebration at noon on March 23. Dignitaries to attend include: Mayor Anthony A. Williams, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and DC Council Chairman Linda Cropp.

Amistad is a replica of the Spanish coastal cargo schooner, La Amistad, which was used in 1839 to ship 53 stolen West Africans sold into the transatlantic slave trade from one side of Havana, Cuba, to the other. This plan was thwarted when, three days into the journey, a 25-year-old Mende rice farmer named Sengbe Pieh led his people in mutiny against their captors and eventually took command of the vessel. After 63 days, La Amistad and her African "cargo" were seized as salvage by the US Naval Revenue Cutter USS Washington near Long Island, New York, and towed to Connecticut's New London harbor. Transported to and held in a New Haven jail, the Africans were charged with murder. This 1839 "incident" took on historic proportions when former President John Quincy Adams argued and won the case for the defense in 1841. The Amistad Incident of 1839 is said to be the first civil rights case argued in the American court system.