A Journey to Freedom
April 6, 2020
I had been waiting for this day. The Carnegie Library of McKeesport would be having a Quilters Exhibition in honor of Black History Month.
I marked my calendar for Saturday, February 27, 2020, knowing, or rather believing, that I was going to see many beautifully sown quilts, made by various black women.
That morning I woke up and made some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. After quietly sipping my cup of warm tea, I carefully paced my way through the day.
I washed the dishes, straightening up things so I could find them, doing laundry and then deciding what to wear to this event.
Black History Month is celebrated in February and gives honor to Black America's heroic men and women who made many contributions and great achievements in every field: Education, science, law, inventions, medicine, sports, beauty, journalism, literature and entertainment.
Black people have contributed mightily to this country's culture and we celebrate the month with indoor and outdoor activities, food, music and exhibits.
As history has shown, ever since Blacks first arrived in this country in 1619, and later, under the Emancipation Proclamation, were freed from slavery; they as a people (men and women) have scaled through enslavement, injustice, racism and prejudice to make remarkable achievements. It is a history that anyone can be proud of.
So after I arrived at the library that afternoon, I learned that no quilt exhibitors were there, and that it had actually been a mini-class to show children about quilt-making.
The librarian in the Children’s Room, Mr. Vince Dalesio proudly took out of a glass case some of the tiny felt quilt pieces that several children had made. I smiled when I saw them, and I took a picture. I learned that once in this country, there was a tradition called quilt-coding.
Then, women who had a safe house for runaway slaves sewed quilts, with various shapes and designs on them to be hung on a clothesline or from a windowsill.
"These quilts,” according to Marie Claire Bryant in Folklife magazine, “were made with a kind of code, so that reading the shapes and motifs sewn into the design, an enslaved person on the run could know the area's immediate dangers or even where to head next."
So, I then learned of a 20-year-old contemporary quilter, Sharon Tindall of Virginia, a black woman. She has even had many of her handmade quilts hanging in the Johnson House, a crucial station on the Underground Railroad, built in 1768 and now a National Historic site in Philadelphia.
A quilt is a collection of pieces of materials made in different sizes and shapes from old dresses, cloth, burlap, sheets, a bit of lace to help keep the memory of family events such as marriage, births or, as with coding, a way to a better life. These quilts were often hung over a bedframe and used to keep warm at night.
There were symbols used such as log cabin, meaning "this is a safe house, the people are kind,” or a bear paw to say, "follow an animal trail through the mountains to water and food," or the monkey wrench, saying "gather your tools to build a shelter perhaps in the woods on your way.”
Harriett Tubman led many slaves to Canada, and she is another great historical figure often spoken about during Black History Month.
Of course, there are some folks that doubt the legend itself, ever existed, because these quilts sewn between 1850 and 1860 during the Underground Railroad era have since been lost or fallen apart. So even though others doubted, those who left the South in the Great Migration and headed towards Detroit, Michigan to find jobs and a better way of life, carried their quilts with them. Although time and use for comfort have worn them down to shreds, we still give honor to those who bravely risked their lives to help slaves to freedom. Praise be!
Still to the slave men, women and children who even despite great and often dangerous risks sought freedom just the same, such spirit is never forgotten.
-Colette Funches