Freedom Ship: Stories and Songs of Maritime Liberation in the Chesapeake With Marcus Rediker and Karen Somerville

Freedom Ship is an immersive program combining historical scholarship, personal reflection, storytelling, and live music to explore how enslaved people used maritime routes across the Chesapeake and beyond in their pursuit of freedom. Marcus Rediker draws from his award-winning book *Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea*, while Karen Somerville performs spirituals and coded songs that illuminate the hidden history of liberation by water.

The presentation reunites Rediker and Somerville following their earlier collaboration around Rediker’s book *The Slave Ship*. Their work brings together maritime history, musical testimony, and African American cultural memory. Somerville is a vocalist, producer, historian, and creator of the a cappella trio Sombarkin’, known for blending gospel, jazz, and Black folk traditions. She has also preserved and curated local African American history since 1994 and has received two Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Project curation fellowships from Washington College.

Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His “histories from below” have received numerous honors, including the George Washington Book Prize, and his books have been translated into 22 languages. His 2025 book *Freedom Ship* received PEN Oakland’s Josephine Miles Literary Award and the Maryland Center for History & Culture’s 2026 Marion Brewington Prize in Maritime History.

When: October 30, 2026

Showtimes: 6:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.

Run time: Approximately two hours based on the scheduled program

Lineup: Marcus Rediker, author and historian; Karen Somerville, vocalist, music producer, and historian

Venue: Maryland Center for History and Culture

Presented by: A partnership between the Maryland Center for History & Culture and the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College

Tickets: Price not available