In 2019, Cornell University started Freedom on the Move, a database of “runaway ads” from the United States’s early newspapers—names, dates, descriptions, rewards. These ads, placed by enslavers, preserve snapshots of more than 30,000 enslaved individuals who took their fates into their own hands, liberating themselves from a cruel, ugly cycle whose effects ripple to this day.
With Freedom on the Move as a starting point, composer Shawn Okpebholo and Duke University professor Dr. Tsitsi Ella Jaji bring these individual stories to life through song. This groundbreaking work promises to question the notions of liberty and freedom that our country holds so dear.
“At the Purchaser’s Option”
words and music by Rhiannon Giddens (b. 1977)
“prologue: oh freedom” from Songs in Flight
Music by Shawn E. Okpebholo (b. 1981)
Traditional text, curated by Tsitsi Ella Jaji (b. 1976)
Rhiannon Giddens, voice and banjo
Howard Watkins, piano
“Songs in Flight” was conceived and commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries
“Songs in Flight” was made possible by the Frank & Lydia Bergen Foundation, the Adrienne Arsht Fund for Resilience through Art, Douglas Dockery Thomas, and an anonymous foundation.
