"You are not a chicken. You are an eagle," said Vanessa Johnson, as she began the storytelling evening in the Events barn. She wove tales that began with African folklore and followed Africans as they came, enslaved, to America until they were freed by the Civil War.
The eagle-chicken story ends happily as the eagle eventually learns to fly. Johnson told of the belief of slaves that "true Africans" could fly and walk on water. She told a tale of Toby who knew the song that enabled slaves to fly away from their master's whips. She told of a grandmother telling her granddaughter of the proud "Ebu" Africans who came off the slave ships, chained hand to hand, and looked into the white masters' eyes and saw the past and the future of America.
Not all the stories had happy endings. In a tale about runaways hiding in a barge on the Erie Canal, the baby drowns when the mother throws herself overboard rather than go back to the evil master she believes is waiting to re-capture her in Rochester.
"Three whistles in the night. Always three," Johnson said as she began a story about the underground railroad. This true story is of a Syracuse family that helped the escaped slaves who were put on the train by Quakers in Philadelphia. She describes the bullet wounds, the dog bites and the child who was too ill to make it. The father in the story is Rev. Germaine Logan, who was an escaped slave and helped hundreds of runaway slaves in 1830-1860.
Johnson's storytelling and singing was accompanied by African drumming provided by Ghanaian Mike Dennis. The audience was invited to sing along and had the opportunity to drum or use other African instruments.
