Captain William Pinkney was born in Chicago’s Bronzeville community and grew up on South King Drive. After graduating from Chicago’s Tilden Technical High School in 1954, Pinkney joined the U.S. Navy. In 1980, Pinkney took a post as director of public information for the Chicago Department of Human Services.
Pinkney decided to embark upon his solo trip around the world in 1990 on his cutter The Commitment. His journey spanned 27,000 miles and lasted 22 months. Bill wanted to give something to his grandchildren AND the children of Chicago and to show inner-city children, kids like he was when he grew up in a single-parent home in a south-side Chicago neighborhood. More than 30,000 children in the Chicago Public Schools and Boston School Systems sailed with him vicariously through a video he sent by satellite to school computers.
The edited footage became a Peabody award-winning television documentary titled “The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney” and aired on PBS, National Geographic, and Disney channels.
Captain Pinkney completed his voyage in Boston *on June 9, 1992. Academic awards include Honorary Doctorate degrees from Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Southern Connecticut State University, and Becker College, MA. The late Senator Edward Kennedy read an account of his achievement into the Congressional Record of the 102nd Congress upon his return. He received the Illinois Governor’s Distinguished Achievement Award.
He was named Yachtsman of the Year by the Chicago Yachting Association. A street was named in his honor in Chicago (Monroe and Lake Shore Drive).
In 1994, Pinkney captained the crew of all black captains of both men and women ( from JPYC) to race the Chicago to Mackinaw Race.
Then, combining his passion for sailing with his interest in history, particularly naval voyages of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Pinkney and his crew set out on the vessel Sortilege to retrace the Middle Passage slave trade routes. He teamed up with PBS and several corporations to create a television special and bring teachers nationwide on board. Pinkney’s next adventure was as the first captain of the replica schooner Amistad from 2000 to 2003.
Pinkney served on the board of trustees of the Mystic Seaport Museum, was Commodore of the Belmont Yacht Club, and was a member of the New York Yacht Club and the International Association of Cape Horners. Pinkney also was honored as the Chicago Yacht Club’s Yachtsman of the Year in 1992, and Chicago Magazine named him a Chicagoan of the Year in 1999.
He was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame and received their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 and the Mystic Seaport Museum’s America and the Sea Award in 2022. Pinkney held honorary degrees from Becker College, Southern Connecticut State University, and Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
“As long as I can swing my feet over the gunwale, I’m going to keep going,” Captain Bill would say. Captain William Pinkney died on Thursday, August 31, 2023, in Atlanta. He was 87.
http://www.captainbillpinkney.com/
http://www.blackchicagosailors.org/
