Dr Kathy Bullock ran the afternoon workshop for the Stoke Sings Festival 2021, #ssf21. She was brilliant, giving a history of the slave trade and the way people were transported from Africa across the world as slaves. Dragged from their homes and imprisoned in cells until ships came and took them away. She explained the inhuman ways they were held and treated. Their transportation in ships where they were often thrown overboard if they were sick or had died during the passage. Beaten and tortured. And from this came the spiritual songs people sang as they worked, and later the Gospel songs as they worshipped. The history of African America is so sad and their treatment was and is despicable. They deserve the freedom that some people just have through the luck of birth.

The workshop was wonderful, Dr Bullock’s singing is great. It was so informative and thought provoking.