Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans
Freddi Williams Evans is an alumna of Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi, where, as a music major, she began studying traditional African music on a study-travel to the University of Ghana at Accra. Evans is the award-winning author of three historically-based children's books: A Bus of Our Own (2001), The Battle of New Orleans: the Drummer's Story (2005), and Hush Harbor:Praying in Secret (2008). Her writings for general audiences have appeared in local newspapers, as well as several compilations and anthologies including The Storytelling Classroom: Applications Across the Curriculum (2006) and Kente Cloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora (1998).Evans has presented on Congo Square at schools, museums, and festivals and her essay New Orleans' Congo Square: A Cultural Landmark will appear in Ancestors of Congo Square: African Art in the New Orleans Museum of Art (2011). Her research on Congo Square has taken her to numerous archives, local and national, and back to West Africa. Evans resides in New Orleans and works as an arts educator and administrator as well as an independent scholar.