By Chris Sanders
East Side Freedom Library (ESFL) first opened their doors to Saint Paul’s East Side community in the summer of 2014. Before a single book was on the shelves, they decided to host a Juneteenth event where they invited Black scholars, activists, and community members to talk about what the holiday meant to them. Their second event was a celebration of the Fourth of July, that focused on African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and his speech “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July” (1852). During this event, they had 4-5 people read Douglass’ speech out loud. The purpose of these events was to highlight the agency African Americans have and to make it the forefront of ESFL’s work. This mission was established by partners and library co-founders Peter Rachleff and Beth Cleary long before the library’s establishment.
Every year, Peter and Beth would go to New York City to visit their dear friend, Camille Billops, an African American artist, archivist, and activist, and her husband James V. Hatch. These visits would always result in Peter and Beth buying art from Camille. During the early 2000s, they bought a mock-up quilt from African American quilter Michael A. Cummings titled “Frederick Douglass Addresses the Abolitionists” (2003). This artwork showcases Douglass talking to other abolitionists, all of whom are white, under the Northern Star. What really grabs me about this piece are the white abolitionists listening to Douglass. The way Cummings drew their eyes is really intriguing because I can’t describe the look they are giving. Are they tired from the night or tired of slavery? Another aspect that caught my eye is the bright star on the upper righthand corner. The yellow is very bright compared to the dim colors used throughout the rest of the piece, and I believe its purpose is to emphasize how important the Northern Star was for enslaved runaways seeking refuge.
Michael A. Cummings is an African American artist and self-taught quilter who began his career in the historic neighborhood of Sugar Hill, New York City, a prominent place for wealthy African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. He graduated from the State University of New York with an Art History degree and several studio art classes under his belt. Cummings “came into quilting from a painter perspective” (Cummings), until he was inspired by the collage making work of his good friend Romare Bearden. This inspiration led him to make a piece out of fabric and he immediately fell in love with the process, resulting in his teaching himself how to work a sewing machine to continue creating large pieces. Cummings’ work incorporates many important facets of African American history such as the beauty of Africa, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, historical Black artists and figures, and so much more. His work is a part of a long history of quiltmaking that has affected the individual lives of Black folks, myself included, and in the Black community as a whole.
My family’s history with quiltmaking began around the early 1900s. My great great great grandmother, Grandma Ida, was a well known quilter in Mississippi who was recognized within the community for her diamond and square shaped patterns. She began a quilting circle with women in her town and family which included my aunt, Sandra. Within these quilting circles, each person was responsible for a specific aspect of the quilt so instead of taking a whole year to make a single quilt, one would be made in a few months. Grandma Ida and Sandra took their quilting skills to Chicago in 1968 where she lived with her granddaughter and five other great grandkids. During this year there was a huge snowstorm in Chicago, so Grandma Ida brought quilts for every great grandchild in the family. Unfortunately, she died in 1985 and the only person in the family who knows how to quilt is Sandra who will soon pass down her knowledge to me. So many other African American families have a similar story.
However, the beginning of quiltmaking starts way before slavery. In West Africa, women used strip textile weaving, a technique that has since been translated into African American patchwork and appliqué. Patchwork consists of sewing together strips of fabric, while appliqué entails sewing those pieces of fabric together onto a larger background. These quilting methods have been used for centuries to create warmth, positive connections among families, and were even used as assistance during the Underground Railroad.
Quilting first appears in the history of slavery with Black women being forced to create quilts for the warmth of the white children in their care, but they were also used to create warmth for their own families. Some women were even able to sell their quilts for a small price. Additionally, they used encoded messages to help enslaved runaways find their way to safety during the Underground Railroad. Harrriet Tubman herself created quilts for “fugitives” in Canada. The reason for these secret codes is that escaping slavery was life or death and many enslaved individuals couldn’t read or write, so communication occurred through word of mouth, songs, quilting, and many other creative outlets. In order for these messages to work, they combined quilting patterns with secret messages such as “staying on the drunkard’s path” and “following the stars” (Tobin and Dobard 23) to reach Canada.
This fact wasn’t discovered until 1994 when writer, educator, collector, and historian Jacqueline Tobin, traveled to the Old Marketplace in Charleston, South Carolina. While there, an elderly woman by the name of Mrs. Ozella McDaniel, stopped Tobin and told her to “write this down” (Tobin and Dobard 20) as she told the story of quilts being used during the Underground Railroad. This story was passed down to her orally from her mother and grandmother. It was a story that Mrs. Ozella never told anyone before, but something compelled her that day to tell our people’s history. Thanks to her, we now have the book Hidden in Plain Valley: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, Ph.D. that details the importance of quilting during this time.
This story has enriched the history of quilting in the Black community, but it doesn’t end there. Quilting became very prominent in the 1970s with artists such as Carolyn Mazloomi, Faith Ringgold, and Cuesta Benberry. African American quilting was first defined by scholars who tried to identify the art under strict characteristics of “vertical shapes, bright colors, asymmetry, improvisation, symbolic forms, multiple patterns, large stitches, and large design elements” (Mazloomi 14). Many embraced these traits while others found them to be restricting and stereotypical because not all quilters used those characteristics in their designs. Due to this, Carolyn L. Mazloomi formed the Women of Color Quilter’s Network (WCQN) in 1985 to “educate, preserve, exhibit, promote and document quilts made by African Americans” (Mazloomi). In Mazloomi’s book, Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts, she describes how quilting can be used to connect back to Africa, heal, remember memories of home, discuss religion, emphasize social and political protests, explore women empowerment, and so much more.
These reasons have translated across centuries of African American history. They tell the stories of our love, our resilience, our strength, our grief, and our hope. They encapsulate good and bad memories throughout our lives. They remind us of sick days at grandma’s, of pretty colors, and of days spent in the sewing room. They remind us of life and death. Quilters like Ed Johnetta Miller, Michelle Flamer, Donette Cooper, and so many other Black men and women, are continuing to tell our stories. They are keeping alive the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and remembering the names of those killed by police brutality. Our stories are important to keep Black history, my history, alive. They will never end and we will never stop using quilting to tell them.
A print of the Michael A. Cummings quilt lives at the East Side Freedom Library. This piece encapsulates a core purpose at ESFL. Much of the book collection and much of the programming emphasizes and inserts the powerful history of African American agency. Through the work I’m doing at East Side Freedom Library, I am learning that this is a great place to engage in my own history. It is a place to engage in the history of so many other marginalized groups around the world and especially within the Twin Cities. We began with Michael A. Cummings’ mock-up work, “Frederick Douglass Addresses the Abolitionists” and continues with my family’s history of quiltmaking, something I learned while writing this piece, and the history of quiltmaking in the Black community as a whole. We’ve discovered the works of Romare Bearden, Carolyn Mazloomi, Faith Ringgold, and other significant African American visual artists that have shaped our understanding of Black history.
Chris Sanders (they/them) is a second year American Studies and Educational Studies double major at Macalester College.
Works Cited
Samantha Hunter By Samantha Hunter September 02, et al. “Michael A. CUMMINGS Shares His Best Tips from 30 Years of Quilt-Making.” Martha Stewart, https://www.marthastewart.com/7982738/michael-a-cummings-quilts.
Tobin, Jacqueline, and Raymond G. Dobard. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 1999.
Mazloomi, Carolyn. Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. Random House International, 1999.