Victor Mooney, from Queens, New York, who became the first African American to row across the Atlantic Ocean and President of the H.R. 1242 Resilience Project reflected yesterday on two symbols of Dutch slave history. Mooney traverse one of the many transatlantic slave trade routes before reaching the Caribbean in 2014 on a fourth try from the Canary Islands.
Mooney began a 14 day visit on Saturday to the Antilles, which will take him and his wife, Su Ping to Sint Maarten, St. Martin, Anguilla and St. Barthélemy.
Among other things, Mooney announced his long-awaited memoir in commemoration of the ten year anniversary next year of crossing the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat by reaching St. Martin/ Sint Maarten. His mission was to encourage voluntary HIV testing in memory of his brother who died of AIDS.
In 2019, Mooney coordinated the second largest commemoration in the United States for the 400 years of African American History with the first enslaved Africans arriving in Point Comfort, Virginia in 1619 under the theme: 400 Years: Faith, Healing, Resilience and Partnership.
In 2017, Mooney presented a piece of his boat, Spirit of Malabo, to the Kingdom of the Netherlands Consul General in New York, Mr. Dolph Hogewoning for the Sint Maarten government.
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