Final SAGE Lecture Set at McNeese
, 2016) Author Freddi Williams Evans will give a lecture titled “Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans” at 3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, in the McNeese State University SEED Center to conclude the McNeese Fall 2016 SAGE Series.Evans presents accounts and descriptions of the songs, dances, musical instruments, religious beliefs and marketing traditions that epitomized the gatherings in Congo Square, one of the New World's most sacred sites of African American memory and community located in New Orleans. Beginning in the 18th century, enslaved Africans and free people of color gathered in Congo Square on Sunday afternoons for well over 100 years.
Her lecture is based on her book, “Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans,” which also includes examples of similar practices that existed in Haiti, Cuba and other parts of the West Indies. She will examine New Orleans’ relationship with Caribbean countries while illustrating Congo Square’s role in extending and perpetuating African music and dance in North America.
Evans is the award-winning author of three historically-based children’s books - “A Bus of Our Own,” “The Battle of New Orleans: the Drummer’s Story” and “Hush Harbor: Praying in Secret.”
An alumna of Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Miss., Evans began studying traditional African music in a study-travel program with the University of Ghana at Accra in West Africa. She now resides in New Orleans and works as an arts educator, administrator and independent scholar.
For more information or to register, call 337-475-5616 or visit www.mcneese.edu/leisure.
Persons needing accommodations as provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact the ADA Coordinator at 337-475-5428, voice; 337-475-5960, fax; 337-562-4227, TDD/TTY, hearing impaired; or by email at cdo@mcneese.edu.