Anthropology and the Anacostia River

Seafarers was the first African-American boating club on the East Coast. Fifteen years ago, club members initiated the Anacostia River Cleanup program, and they have dedicated their resources to restoration of the river. They do other community service projects, including programs for youth and emergency assistance to flood victims in North Carolina.

At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2000 they built a boat by hand on the mall.

Brett Williams has worked with them in organizing the cleanups, participating in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and documenting their history in an effort to protect the club from displacement.

On an icy January day last year, Seafarers Commodore Billy Cobb (pictured below, at left) recounted the club's founding this way, after first identifying himself to Sue Barnes and Brett Williams:

I was raised up in North Carolina, went to school in North Carolina, sharecropper. 1960 I moved into the Wash metro area, and at that point I began a job with DC Transit, spent 30 years working for DC Transportation Dept, Metro. Now I'm retired to part time consultant with Metro, and my position, my connection to Seafarers Yacht club, I am the Commodore of Seafarers Yacht Club; the Commodore oversees the operations of the club. The club consists of 58 members, which is boat owners and some associate members who are not boat owners. Our trajectory and so forth as far as the club is concerned is to work to benefit neighbors and so forth in the area, kids and so forth, volunteers, such as the cleanup, and this year, September 16 we had an all out drive for the flood victims in North Carolina. We donated something like 22 truckloads of clothes; all the members of the club chipped in.

But I can give you a little bit of history about Seafarers Yacht Club, which was organized in 1945 by Mr. Lewis T. Green, which was a teacher at Brown, Shaw, and Armstrong, and he taught woodcarving. He built boats, and he got the club by going through Mary McLeod Bethune at the time. Because he ran into some problems with the Interior Department because at that particular time they didn't rent to blacks. So he went about trying to get the land, which was swampland, and he went through Mary McLeod Bethune to acquire this property. Her position was Special Assistant to President Roosevelt for Blacks.

Former Commodore Howard Gassaway contributed:

I retired from the Department of Recreation in 1979. I became a member some 25 years ago, of SYC, and was elected to commodore of the club in 1980. I served for 16 years as the commodore of the club. During that period of time the club contributed themselves to a variety of activities for the community, such as boat rides for the youth, we volunteered our boats for youth and for some senior citizens during the years. We have committed ourselves to assist people on special holidays, before that we were giving baskets to people on Thanksgiving to needy families, we did that for some 16-18 years, we continue to do those things on Christmas, I'd say that this club was the first to come up with the idea of cleaning up the Anacostia. The Anacostia being identified as one of the ten worst rivers in the United States, we here at Seafarers have been here since 1945 thought it would be a good idea for us to call attention to the river which has been called the Other River in Washington D.C. So we began our cleanup and over the course of years, some 14 years, we've been spearheading the way for a cleaned up river on the Anacostia, we've probably already taken out of the river some 150 tons of trash and debris over the course of the years and we've had I'm sure in the neighborhood of 10, 15,000 volunteers who have participated with us during those 14 years to assist us. We have always taken the lead when it came to the river cleanup and we will continue to do so under the present admin.

And we lend the boathouse out to groups that want to have their affairs here, like wedding receptions, birthday parties or community groups that may want to use the facilities for their meeting, any community youth group that wanted to use it - we have the Anacostia River Cleanup today - Anacostia Watershed Society, they got an award from the President about a month or two ago for their efforts.

Business Manager A.J. Collins added:

I became involved with the Seafarers from affiliation with the current Commodore, Billy Cobbs. And once I visited the club a few times, I liked the camaraderie, and once I got into the history of it I was very enthused about the history of the club and decided that I wanted to be a part of that history. I am a boat owner and I enjoy boating, however when I originally came to the club I was just enthused with the club and not into boating. So the club has taught me everything that I know now about the water, boating, Our next community event is the Anacostia River Cleanup, however we do, on a yearly basis, have a Family Day on which we, the club itself, sponsor a picnic, moon bounce, ice cream, everything, for the kids in the neighborhood, and the entire neighborhood is invited here free of charge for a day of fun and education, and we have fishing tournaments for the children and we also have flag raising in which the community are involved in and I am either on or chairing all those committees, I'm very much involved in all the activities that Seafarers sponsor.

Norris MacDonald, one of the younger members, was perhaps more boastful:

I am originally from North Carolina, one of the areas that was hit hard by the floods in September. And as the community stated earlier, we have been very much involved with the relief efforts as far as they are concerned. We have made numerous trips with food and water and we currently are involved with taking appliances to North Carolina. I left Carolina in the 60s and wandered around in the military and wound up in the Washington area.

Seafarers does a lot of voluntary and charitable activities that are not widely recognized. My goal is to continue the grand tradition of Seafarers and to continue the tradition of African American participation in boating. That is the great achievement of Seafarers is that during a time of severe segregation and oppression, African Americans took to the water. So we'll continue that tradition of hopefully training the youth coming up in the 21st century to continue boating. The one thing I've gotten a lot of satisfaction from was the river cleanups and river walks and river tours, taking kids out, and a lot of them from the inner city it's their first time being out on the water, lot of adults too. As you know this section of the river's in the "blackest" section of Washington, D.C., these wards along the Anacostia River are 80-90% African American and many haven't had an opportunity for recreational boating along the Anacostia. I think Seafarers serves as a motivation for blacks to get on the water.

 

Finally, boat builder Elijah McKenzie (at left) stated:

During those years [of working at Metro] for recreation I frequently visited Seafarers because they were doing great things, plus there was a sense of being outdoors, of being on the water, which I really liked. I had a lot of friends who had boats and that's a lot of fun. So I started doing things with them until they eventually convinced me I should be a member. We have something that they're proud of, associate member, you do not need to own a boat to become a member of Seafarers. As Associate Member you have the same rights and benefits as all the other members. People listen to you if you don't own a boat. We have 54 members at present, that fluctuates, it has been greater, but it's dropped off.

It seem that way [as though all members are from North Carolina], don't it. We have some good people in North Carolina. We have a lot of people here from all parts of the country. We do have quite a few from North and South Carolina. A lot of North Carolina people in the district too, it goes to show. It's a good pastime plus the good things they do. We can reach out and help them and so we do. We just finished traveling 300 miles to North Carolina to help flood victims. And we're still doing that, it's still in progress. That being our home also, that's a factor also, there's a lot of areas if we see anybody but we like to help just anybody we help.

The club was primarily for racers during the early years, but quickly became a social institution, rich in tradition.

For example, Seafarers holds a Flag Raising ceremony each spring to launch the boating season. During this ceremony, they also give service awards to members, sing the Black National Anthem (Lift Every Voice and Sing), read aloud the club's history, and recite the names and ring a bell for members who have passed on. They honor club captains and their "first mates," and D.C. funk legend Sir Joe Quarterman plays taps. Then the members hop out of their white uniforms and into party clothes for barbecue and dancing. The next day they join with other boats on the rivers for the Blessing of the Fleet.

But boat-builder Bob Martin believes that "they've been trying to get rid of us for years." The thorough marginalizing of Seafarers, an actual community institution deeply rooted in the history of black migration to Washington, the public service career paths of many residents, and D.C.'s continuing ties to the Carolinas, speaks to the limited kinds of communities of consumption and fleeting interactions (with nature as backdrop) that gentrification allows. To survive, Seafarers must try to receive Historic District Designation, which demands projecting the kind of histories that gentrification promotes.