Patching together African-American history

I remember being so struck by Jacqueline Woodson's Show Way, I fretted over whether to donate it to Hurricane Katrina victims. I decided to part with it, though it hurt to do so, but  hoped it would find a home with someone who needed it more.

I have two more books in front of me that feature African-American quilting, and, as in Show Way, where the quilts become symbols of freedom. While neither captures the break-all-the-molds uniqueness of Show Way, both are also based on real people and left me somehow feeling both uplifted and heartbroken at the same time.

(I'm sorry I can't get the text to wrap around the Amazon ads, please just bear with me.)

Night Boat to Freedom
by Margot Theis Raven; illustrated by E.B. Lewis

Christmas John is 12 when he begins rowing slaves across the Ohio River from Kentucky to freedom. His Granny Judith has one request--what color did the passenger wear? Whatever color he tells her, she sews into a dazzling quilt. And it's all the more poignant after she relates how she was lured onto a slave ship in Africa with patches of bright, red cloth.

But red will also be a lucky hue. When there's only two more spaces left on the quilt, she sews John a crimson shirt. But the dogs are on his scent, and the owners are out with guns ... and ... and ... you have to read the rest yourself.

I've noted before how many African-American illustrators rely heavily on realism, the better to layer all the details, the symbols, the textures and shades and shadows of slavery. Lewis makes sure we won't miss a line on Granny Judith's careworn face or the creeping gloom of the predawn river.

But the real treat is Raven's suspenseful, atmospheric text, told in first person from Christmas John's perspective. The tone is reverant, even hushed, and heavy with imagery and layered meaning:

Then Granny Judith spoke so low even the dark couldn't hear her. "But now, Christmas John, we got a chance to learn the color of freedom!"

Though the story's fictional, she describes in a lengthy end note how she delved into the Slave Narrative Collection, compiled by the government during the Great Depression, for inspiration.  The individuals are based on two real people who likely never met, but whose histories have been stitched together for the sake of one seamless narrative.

Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria
by Kyra E. Hicks; illustrated by Lee Edward Fodi

This story of a freed slave who sews a quilt for England's queen is a tear-jerker of the first order, as uplifting as it is heartbreaking. We follow Martha Ann from slavery in Tennessee to freedom in Liberia.

Then the British Navy begins patrolling Liberian waters to ward off slavers, and Martha Ann hits on the idea of thanking that nation's new monarch. Again, the quilting takes on a larger-than-life significance as Martha Ann stitches her life together again and again after various tragedies and setbacks, always with the same coffee-plant pattern, always setting coins aside hoping to make that 3,500-mile trek to England.

Wow, was I rooting for poor Martha Ann. The story's told in simple, straightforward text--no fancy literary footwork here, but this gripping tale doesn't really need it. Fodi's watercolors fill in those blanks by depicting Martha Ann at work, both in the fields and over her masterpiece.

A press release describes Hicks' own journey into Martha Ann's life: visiting Windsor Castle, weeding through Library of Congress newspaper microfilm, interviewing distant relatives. I'm glad she was so obsessed: this true story adds a colorful piece to the patchwork of American history.

Here's more about African-American quilts, and their use by slaves. 

Comments

[cloudscome]

I love this post. Thanks so much! quilting and Black history are two of my fascinations.

[Anne]

I don't know much about quilting, funny enough. But I loved both these stories. Thanks.