In fact, Congo Square is considered the birthplace of jazz.

It may be a pretty scene, but it shows you it’s not fair, tells you it’s not fair, then shows you how slaves had this release for half a day on Sunday.”ĭuring that half day, people met up with friends and family, traded goods and played music. This gave the poem its structure and form, which the subject matter needed-particularly for kids, so they could digest it. When she began writing Freedom in Congo Square, Weatherford says, “I challenged myself to mix picture-book tropes: the counting book and the day-of-the-week book. When Sunday arrives, the words leap from their previous placement at the top or bottom of the page and swirl throughout, joining an array of blots and brushstrokes, a sea of masks, musical instruments and exuberant dancing figures. Then, more colors seep in: pink, blue, yellow, purple. At first, the pages’ backgrounds are brown and green, echoing the fields where the enslaved work. Gregory Christie’s paintings help readers feel the slaves’ suffering, exhaustion and determined hopefulness. Didn’t they deserve so much more, for toiling like that all week, than a half day off?”įreedom in Congo Square’s rhyming, rhythmic poetry builds as the pages turn, with couplets about the unending, wide-ranging work the slaves performed each day (“Tuesdays, there were cows to feed, / fields to plow, and rows to seed.”) and the cruelty of their masters (“The dreaded lash, too much to bear. Yes, Congo Square was a great place, but it was all they had. In a call from her North Carolina home, Weatherford tells BookPage that, although the people in her book were looking forward to a time of fun and fellowship, “I wanted to share a realistic depiction of slavery, that showed clearly that slavery was an injustice. Beneath the sun and open air, / the crowd abuzz with news to share.”

Through finely crafted phrases and vivid, painterly illustrations, the book tells how slaves living in 1800s New Orleans worked toward a precious half day of temporary freedom, on Sundays at Congo Square: “It was a market and a gathering ground / where African music could resound.

Carole Boston Weatherford’s evocative and moving new book, Freedom in Congo Square, is about people who work for the weekend, too-but in a context that’s far less lighthearted, set during a shameful and important period of American history. Whether you’re in school or at work, “TGIF” is a familiar refrain.

By and By by Carole Boston Weatherford