Freddi Williams Evans

Freddi Williams Evans is the author of Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans. Her research and advocacy influenced the New Orleans City Council to pass an ordinance that made the popular name, “Congo Square,” the official name of the national landmark. Evans’ book received the 2012 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award and has been published in French.  Her essays on Congo Square appear in exhibition guides, on-line encyclopedias and anthologies. Her numerous engagements include presentations in France (Paris, Aulnay and Bordeaux) and Senegal (Dakar and St. Louis) as well as Fulbright Teacher Abroad programs in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Japan.  Evans is also an 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 and is a New Orleans Arts Council Community Arts Award recipient.