A dramatic storyteller will bring history alive during the 150th Anniversary of Memorial Day in Waterloo NY, May 27-30th, 2016. 

Carolyn Evans, described as a “spirited performing storyteller,” reenacting the lives of Harriet Tubman, a former slave known for her work rescuing slaves using the secretive Underground Railroad.

A New Yorker whose mother hailed from the Warren County community of Ridgeway, Evans learned her craft in the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts. She started performing Sojourner Truth in her church around 1987 and has been performing Harriet Tubman for about 22 years. She said that an audience member once described what she does as “like history unfolding right before my eyes.”

Evans said in describing what attendees can expect here. “Today we are making history by even speaking of the journey of our ancestors. History is active and growing and stimulating and moving and it’s today. History sometimes challenges you.”

Harriet Tubman is among other strong black women that Evans includes in her “My Spirit Sings: Women Who Could’ve Sung the Blues But Didn’t” series of dramatic performances. “There’s something inside of us that continues to sing; it’s stronger than we can see, touch, acknowledge,” Evans said. She described what she does using the African word “sankofa,” which means looking back in order to move ahead.

Evans said that in addition to teaching history, her performances also teach tolerance and help with understanding other people. She issued a special invitation for middle school and high school students to attend the event in order to learn something about the past, as well as relate history to the present. “Knowledge is power, and when you know where you came from, you have a better understanding of where you’re going,” she said.”

“I hope to expose to people little parts of the women’s lives through the storylines. It’s a part of bringing history alive,” she said. Carolyn Evans, described as a “spirited performing storyteller,” reenacting the life of Harriet Tubman, a former slave known for her work rescuing slaves using the secretive Underground Railroad.

“It will be interactive, educational and fun, a travel through our history,” Evans said in describing what attendees can expect here. “Today we are making history by even speaking of the journey of our ancestors. History is active and growing and stimulating and moving and it’s today. History sometimes challenges you.”

“The diaspora of the African-American experience is the whole experience of enslavement and the journey from Africa to come to America,” she said. “We can all see inside of ourselves that there is still something we have to be free from