Code songs and closing history author event set Sept. 29
At its closing event, the eighth annual History Book Festival will present a live performance of code songs by Linda D. Harris and David B. Cole, at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, Sep. 29, at the Cape Henlopen High School Theatre.
Code songs were once used to guide enslaved peoples toward their freedom on the Underground Railroad, connecting a network of people and safe houses along the route. Harris is director of programming at the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center in Cambridge, Md. Cole is a guitarist, vocalist, entertainer, and music educator. His band, David B. Cole and Mainstreet Blues, performs worldwide.
Following the performance, Harris will be in discussion with featured guest Tiya Miles, author of “Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People.”
At age 27, Harriet Tubman began her first journey to freedom in 1849, traveling from Dorchester County, Md., to Philadelphia. Tubman ultimately led 13 successful trips on the Underground Railroad, leading some 70 men, women, and children to freedom above the Mason-Dixon Line.
Harris said “Through coded language, sounds, cadences and rhythms of slavery, freedom seekers paced their way north along the Underground Railroad. Tubman’s story, her faith, vision, and purpose were not separate from these variations in timbre, sound, culture and color of the calls and cries for freedom. Tiya Miles’ work amplifies that! David and I hope that our performance will ready the audience for a discussion of ‘Night Flyer’ by setting the mood with spirited renditions of these sounds and music.”
Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University, a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow. Reservations are required and may be purchased at bit.ly/HBF-Miles. Each reservation includes one general admission seat and a signed, hardback copy of “Night Flyer.”
The closing event is funded through the generous support of Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent counties, and presented in partnership with the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice.
The History Book Festival is presented by Delaware Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty. Special thanks go to HBF’s Founding Program Partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library for event promotion and production, and Browseabout Books. For more information, go to historybookfestival.org.
