Freddi Williams Evans is an independent scholar and author of award-winning books for children as well as adults. She is a native of Madison, Mississippi and a graduate of Tougaloo College and Hahnemann University (now Drexel University). She is the author of Come Sunday, A Young Reader’s History of Congo Square and Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans, which received the 2012 Louisiana Humanities Book of the Year Award and influenced the city ordinance that made “Congo Square” the official name of the historic landmark. Most recently, she co-authored Passing It On: The Art of John T. Scott.
As a cultural activist, Evans founded “CongoSquareConnection.org,” an online resource that advances the study of the landmark. She co-chaired the New Orleans Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade to Louisiana, helped to erect the UNESCO Site of Memory Middle Passage Marker on the Westbank of the city, and served on the New Orleans Legacy Project Committee along with the Cultural Repatriation Committee Among her numerous recognitions, Evans received the Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in 2024.
