Devotion to Freedom

Artist:

Vera P. Hall

*credit Melanie Zacek Photography

Dimensions:

photo replica

Materials:

hand appliqued and embellished

Quilt Story

Kim F. Hall: Civil War: Devotion to Freedom is made from the Civil War Bride pattern by Corliss Searcey done in the style of the Bird of Paradise quilt owned by the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Instead of the traditional bride and groom, Vera included original blocks depicting Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. She consulted with Frederick Douglass scholar, Celeste-Marie Bernier, for the Douglass block. He holds a copy of his first antislavery newspaper,The North Star, which Professor Bernier told Vera was one of his proudest accomplishments. Harriet Tubman holds the chicken she used to distract the attention of a passing former enslaver while she was on a rescue attempt.

We Didn't Wait for Freedom is a series of Black History quilts that challenge the idea that enslaved Black people passively waited to be emancipated by the US North. Vera uses her skills as an educator and teacher to translate what she learns from historians, books, museums, and historic sites into visual stories about enslavement and freedom. The series began in 2007 when Vera won Civil War themed blocks during a guild meeting and decided to use them to help teach largely unknown histories of Black people. That quilt, We, Too, Sing America, tells a larger history of how both famous and unnamed people made their way out of enslavement. Other quilts focus on nineteenth century figures who fought for and earned their own freedom.