The California Revels presented
 Remembering Slavery:

The History of African Americans Through Slave Songs

 featuring

Wendell Brooks, vocalist & Derique, hambone

 at the Julia Morgan Theater

January 19, 2002

The California Revels and Brooks, a soloist with the Revels' annual winter solstice celebrations for several years, bring audiences new insights into the history and the songs of West Africans who were forced into slavery and brought to the Americas and the Caribbean. The songs they created express their sorrow and faith, and remain a powerful testament to that experience. 

Wendell Brooks teaches vocal music and history at Berkeley High and Ethnic Studies at CSU, Hayward. In addition to the Christmas Revels, Brooks performs as a soloist in the Bay Area and has sung extensively throughout Europe.

Derique has found himself carrying on something of a one-man hambone crusade in he attempt to revive its status as an art form.  According to Dr. Joseph Boskin, professor of history and Afro-American studies at Boston University, Derique's efforts to revive hambone are "representative of a growing movement in America to keep alive elements of black culture that have survived through the generations."

For information about events at the Julia Morgan Theater visit JMT.