The rebirth of the schooner Amistad for summer's close this year comes at a fine teaching moment.

I can't think, in recent history, of a lower point in the country's race relations, with public unrest and demonstrations and candidates for president hurling insults and accusing each other of being a bigot or racist.

Teaching Connecticut children in a way that might help them grow up in a more racially adjusted society is essentially a new goal of Amistad.

That was the general theme of remarks this week by Len Miller of Essex, chairman of the board of Discovering Amistad, the new nonprofit that stepped in to replace the last organization that went into receivership after years of squandering state money without any accountability.

"We are not where we need to be in terms of racial relations," said Miller, standing alongside Amistad on Monday, her fresh varnish gleaming in the hot August sun at Amistad Pier on the New London waterfront. "This will be our goal and our mission."

Amistad arrived this week in the city — expected to be one of her principal Connecticut ports — after a substantial overhaul at Mystic Seaport.

There are two exciting prospects with the "new" Amistad now setting out under new leadership.

The first is the change in mission.

Sound Waters, also founded by Miller, uses shipboard and classroom experiences to teach schoolchildren about Connecticut waters and the preservation of Long Island Sound. It will serve as a model for Discovering Amistad, which will help students learn more about race relations from Connecticut's signature story at the outset of the abolition of slavery.

Amistad will not be simply another tall ship teaching young people how to learn tall ship sailing. It also will no longer just visit new ports to tell the remarkable story of the African captives who overthrew those who enslaved them and finally prevailed in their insurrection before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It can't be just the story of what happened" in 1839, Miller said.

The inspiring story will be incorporated, of course, in the entire curriculum, which has been developed.

The 14-week program, including sailing aboard Amistad and once-a-week classroom instruction, will be offered in school systems around the state, including in New London this fall.

Amistad is a now a teaching tool.

The other pledge Miller made Monday, when I asked, is to wean the ship from state subsidies for operating expenses within the next two years, once the organization gets established.

Operating revenues instead will come from aggressive fundraising and fees paid by school districts that sign up for the programs, he said.

Miller has assembled an accomplished new board that will steer this new course. Retired appellate court Judge Thomas Bishop of North Stonington, a board member, helped oversee the significant renovation, which is almost complete.

I couldn't help but muse this week how our Amistad has a lot in common with its 19th-century namesake.

Despite being hijacked by a pirate nonprofit that ended up having no board of directors and stopped filing tax returns before moving the boat out of state, it eventually was rescued, starting with the court intervention ably engineered by Attorney General George Jepsen.

Amistad, newly christened the official state ship, indeed is, as Miller noted Monday, about slavery, oppression and empowerment.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com