Quilt Codes of the Underground Railroad

hello my name is rose mitchell and i am the librarian at the african american resource center at la county library today i would like to tell you about the underground railroad and quilt codes the underground railroad is part of a larger story of personal and cultural survival of proud african people brought to america against their will prior to 1860 america captured and enslaved about four million black africans slavery came about because americans needed workers to do the difficult labor on the sprawling plantations that stretched across the south and because slave traders saw an opportunity to make a great deal of money buying and selling slaves from the beginning slaves tried to escape from slave holders but attempting an escape or helping someone else to escape was dangerous and could result in severe punishment or death the underground railroad is the name for the secret route that slaves took to escape to freedom it was so named because freedom seekers or escaping slaves who traveled on this underground route seem to vanish as if traveling underground it was of course not a real railroad but rather a series of safe holding places called stations the people who helped the freedom seekers travel from one station to the next was they were known as railroad workers or conductors such as harriet tubman the people who helped the escaping slaves get food and places to sleep were known as station masters people who worked and travel on the railroad use secret codes to learn the routes from one safe place to the next although some scholars dispute this researchers have found evidence that an underground railroad quilt code existed to guide enslave people to freedom so escaping from the plantation as i said was a life or death decision for the slave because they lacked reading and writing abilities they were enslaved in a country they knew nothing about and they were easily set apart from others by their skin color where could you go whom could you trust most information regarding escape had to be committed to memory and passed on by word of mouth using codes signs and symbols created by the slaves and only shared with those who could be trusted because slaves of all backgrounds shared an oral history of storytelling coupled with the knowledge of textile production and african art an art form which embodies african symbol symbolic systems and designs they discover they were able to communicate complex messages in the stitches patterns designs colors and fabrics of the american quilt here are a few samples of underground railroad quilt pattern codes and their messages first we have the monkey wrench this design was to prepare the tools you need for a long journey that was the message the wagon wheel design the message was it's time to load the wagon or prepare to escape the bear's paw design told the slaves to take a mountain trail out of view or take the path of the bear the crossroads design told the slaves that the main crossroad was cleveland ohio a destination offering several routes to freedom the bow ties told the slaves to dress in a disguise or put on a change of clothes the flying geese design was the pattern that told slaves to follow the migrating geese north towards canada and to freedom the drunkard's path design told the slaves to create a zigzag path to avoid detection the north star instructed slaves to follow the north star to canada and to freedom the log cabin that is the design that we are using today to create cards which was used to let slaves know where safe houses were the symbol could also be drawn on the ground by others as a signal that they could be trusted by the slaves and it was safe to talk to them while we won't be able to create a fabric quilt today we can take inspiration from generations of quilters and create a log cabin pattern from colorful paper before we begin our project i would like to mention that we have been inviting the african-american quilters of los angeles to exhibit their quilts annually at ac billbrew library one of their members who is a local artist named ramses created this beautiful quilt depicting the underground railroad hero harriet tubman we have many resources on quilting in our library system and the african-american resource center has a few unique items on african-american quilting in our collection i welcome you to visit the african-american resource center at ac bill brew library so that you can explore some of our collection and also attend some of our community programs so thank you for being here today and i look forward to seeing you at our african american resource center

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Id: XLo05HGd43c

Length: 7min 38sec (458 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021