Folk First: Black Roots Music is Vienna’s newest project. Debuted at the recent Harlem Arts Festival, it was a fabulously entertaining and riveting musical experience! It is no surprise that the intellectually gifted Vienna has a degree from Yale in African American Studies and Political Science. What is so remarkable is how perfectly she and her excellent band (Newman Taylor Baker – washboard; Keith Johnston – guitar; Henrique Prince – fiddle) convey the contemporary meaning of Work Songs and Spirituals and Prison Blues so that both young and old are rapturously engaged. You have to hear it for yourself.
Folk First: Black Roots Music with Vienna Carroll & Friends from Mark Johnson on Vimeo.
Quakers helped. Mostly, Black people Freed Ourselves through the "Slave Grapevine." Watch the story of African Queens kidnapped, enslaved and resisting. Plus, U.S. Colored Troops and the Slave Grapevine in the Black freedom struggle in the U.S.
Read a brief history of slavery and African rebellions in America freeing ourselves.
