Stories and Songs of Maritime Liberation in the Chesapeake
With Marcus Rediker and Karen Somerville
October 30
6:00pm
Holt Education Center
200 S Cross St
Free
A partner event with the Maryland Center for History & Culture and the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College
Distinguished author Marcus Rediker and vocalist Karen Somerville reunite in a powerful, immersive presentation drawn from Rediker’s prize‑winning book Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea. Through Rediker’s readings and reflections on the long‑overlooked maritime routes to liberation, and Somerville’s performance of spirituals and coded songs, the audience is carried into the hidden world of enslaved people who sought freedom across the water.
This collaboration, first introduced with Rediker’s acclaimed book The Slave Ship, returns with renewed depth and emotional force—an unforgettable convergence of scholarship, storytelling, and musical testimony that brings history to life with haunting beauty and profound truth.
About Karen Somerville
Karen Somerville is a renowned vocalist, music producer, and creator of the acclaimed a cappella trio Sombarkin’, celebrated for their dynamic fusion of gospel, jazz, and Black folk traditions. Beyond her musical achievements, she is a dedicated historian who has curated and preserved local African American history since 1994, earning two prestigious curation fellowships from the Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Project at Washington College. Her work bridges performance and preservation, bringing cultural memory to life through voice, scholarship, and community storytelling.
About Marcus Rediker
Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His “histories from below” have won numerous awards, including the George Washington Book Prize, and have been translated into twenty-two languages worldwide. He is the author, most recently, of Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea (Viking-Penguin, 2025), winner of PEN Oakland’s Josephine Miles Literary Award and the 2026 Maryland Center for History & Culture’s Marion Brewington Prize in Maritime History.
