AAC History

How it began: I could make up this fancy story of how it all began but the truth is Amistad became an ideal when I invited two of the New Haven, Ct. poetry elders to a meeting of a afro-centric poetry club that was growing and doing good things in the various communities they were in; the next day I asked the sisters how did they like the meeting and they said it was too snobby for them. It felt like some exclusive group of artist. I swallowed, gagging on the thought of how can a poetry cipher of people of color be too snobby and when did we black folks become exclusive. But I understood after they pointed out that the residential building had a doorman and the vibe was not inclusive of all. I had to agree. So, I continued to be apart of this group and used my connections to get us a face to face with the Director of the New Haven Board of Education.

This meeting lead to an opportunity for the group to work with the comprehensive arts program and to conduct workshops with a middle school in the city around the Lorraine Hansberry play, “A Raisin In The Sun”. The group as a whole was supposed to conduct these workshops but somehow I was left alone to conduct all fifty workshops alone and out of the fifty I believe that I had help for three of workshops by two of the group members and that solidified for me the attitude that the sisters were pointing out and I did not want to be seen as a snob or a person of color that forgot about the folks that are apart of the struggle but have not arrived to the Ivy League yet. So I called the director of Amistad America, which is the Non-profit organization whom are the conservators of the floating fully operational reconstruction museum ship, and told them of my intention to use the name Amistad to form an artist collective organized around the value of friendship and the concept of people of all ethnicities, religions, color and apart of the one human race.  I choose Amistad because it literally means friendship and the concept of all people who have the same ideal of freedom working together to achieve that ideal of, “FREEDOM FOR ALL”.

I lived on the beach with my wife and family. So I gave a barbeque in our backyard invited anyone who wanted to participate in a group that would reach out to the community and be about focusing on artistic outreach to a city where murder, drugs and poverty was growing at an exponential rate and needed a voice of expression. Hence we had the first meeting of Amistad artist who thought this would be good for the community. We came up with Amistad Art Collective’s motto, “Freedom through Expression”.  We then put thought into what we should do as an organization and agreed that we should never have any artist despite their color, age, educational or economic background feel excluded from the organization. We hammered out a mission statement and guidelines for the collective to follow: Amistad Arts Collective’s Mission – “The mission of the Amistad Arts Collective (AAC) is to promote diverse ways of expressing and communicating human experiences through the arts while being dedicated to improving the quality of life and fostering communication between all people. Further, the AAC seeks to empower our communities by promoting awareness of the arts as a vital part of diverse cultural heritages and by helping people cultivate their voices as an expression of freedom.”

Our Vision: We will
•    Provide leadership in establishing cultural opportunities
•    Support successful collaborations between diverse groups
•    Empower the youth of our world
•    Provide access to the community’s best visual, musical and literary artist

I would like to thank that hand full of artists who were there at the beginning and who played instrumentally in this organization becoming what it is today. Angela Mendez, Marlene Monday for designing our logo and most of all my ex- wife it might have been because of my dedication that I became lost in the vision and meaning of family and maybe it was that drive of mine that lead to driving you towards the outside influences that destroyed our family but I want to say that nothing will destroy our unity, Lil’ Hashim loves you and I always will have gratitude for the lesson of life and love that you gave to me. I am a man because of your support and like the phoenix you will rise from the ash. I will always “Love” you!!!  Moments like these will always keep me grounded in the vision.

I extend an open invitation to any artist who believe as we believe One Love, Many Bloods, Many Nations, One Life, One World, One Human Condition:
“FREEDOM”