Fe Seymour

FE SEYMOUR BIOGRAPHYFe Seymour’s worldview came into focus at an early age. As a six-year-old trying to make new friends in occupied Germany, the daughter of a Tuskegee airmen discovered the power of taking the initiative when it comes to bridging cultural divides. Fe snuck local German children homemade cookies through a fence that separated her family’s residence from the surrounding German families. She soon found local kids bringing both bread, and curious mothers back to the fence, thereby ushering in a new era of trust and understanding with former foes.But it was the long time Alaskan’s experience while living in California during the height of the civil rights era that really fueled her burning desire to change deep-rooted cultural bias. As a 14-year-old representing the first black family to move into an all-white neighborhood, Fe often found herself at the wrong end of a rifle while walking to school. Trained to believe guns should only be pointed at your nation’s sworn enemy, the science-buff could not fathom living in a country where she was the enemy based solely on her skin color.At the age of 23, the mother of two found a way to tackle these issues head-on: In 1973, she joined “The Acali Experiment,” a five-man six-woman crew of various religions, nationalities, and social backgrounds who set out alone on a small raft drifting across the Atlantic and Caribbean oceans for 101 days. A Mexican anthropologist wanted to study what pushes people to violence, and selected Fe for her radio operation skills. Even though a book titled “THE ACALI EXPERIMENT” was published detailing certain aspects of this harrowing adventure, it was a subsequent award-winning documentary film titled “THE RAFT” filmed over 40 years later that revealed what really happened.Rather than expose the worst of human nature, as the book posits, THE RAFT, through crew member interviews, shows that Fe’s beliefs in the power of positive interactions won out. With few crew members speaking each other’s languages, it was almost as if the self-taught diplomat was transported back to that fence in Germany. But in this case, she was interacting with Swedish, Japanese, Algerian, Mexican, Angolan, Uruguayan, Israeli and Greek people. One day, in the middle of July, she inspired crew members to bring their version of Christmas or New Year’s celebrations to dinner. It proved to be one of the most intense bonding moments on the raft. Ultimately, this gesture might have saved a life when talks of mutiny and murder began.In 1976, the North Carolina-born Army dependent took her adventure further north – to The Last Frontier. Believing that homesteading with no running water or central heat would be a sure way to raise strong children, she embarked on her own experiment on 120 acres in unincorporated Alaska. From chopping firewood for heat to sewing her own hand up with a needle and dental floss, Fe embraced the pioneer spirit once again. Just like she was the first African-American to integrate her high school, the fast-learner was a groundbreaking homesteader.After her children were grown, the jewelry-making aficionado moved closer to Fairbanks and earned her AAS in applied science at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, often finding herself the only woman in the room during a 30-year telecom career. In her semi-retirement, The Mandarin Chinese speaker enjoys frequent trips to China dating back to 1984. Just as her early raft adventure is often mentioned among the strangest human experiments in history, Fe always seems to find unique ways to bridge cultures. On a recent trip to China, she found herself singing an iconic Chinese opera song under a stone bridge in Beijing, sparking warm conversations with locals, many of whom had never spoken with an American before.Not one to forge a path without looking to help those behind her, Fe started a local high school STEM scholarship for African American girls pursuing science in college. The single-mother’s off-the-grid parenting methods garnered a Harvard graduate daughter who is an actor/writer in Hollywood, and son with a degree in robotics working in electronics in Seattle. Still living up to the lessons her German and French-speaking pianist mother taught her about the need to never stop learning, the Alaska pioneer now practices Qigong, a form of Tai Chi, and studies the Chinese language and cyber security.Fe Seymour is an over 40-year resident of Fairbanks, Alaska.