Teaching and Learning about Black History (In February and beyond) with the Woods Primes
As we approached the month of February there was a stitching craze happening in the Woods Primes. So many children were excited about using colorful thread as a form of expression to create art, designs, and writing on fabric. We wanted to connect this enthusiasm with the upcoming Black History Month, and dove into an investigation of Black Textile Artists both contemporary and historical, using picture books and other resources as inspiration.
This past week we learned about a place in Alabama called Gee’s Bend that had historical significance not only because of its role in the Civil Rights Movement, but also because of the artistic legacy of its quilters. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. visited Gee's Bend, inspiring residents of the all Black community to register to vote. In retaliation, the U.S. government cut off the ferry that connected Gee's Bend to the rest of the state, isolating the community. The isolation of Gee's Bend contributed to the development of its distinctive quilting style. The Gee's Bend quilters are known for their improvisation, use of available materials, and bold compositions. The Souls Grown Deep Foundation highlights the work of African American artists like the Gee's Bend quilters, and how their art reflects social and political issues. The Gee's Bend quilts have influenced the Modern Quilting movement.
We watched a short video and read a picture book called Stitchin’ and Pullin: A Gee’s Bend Quilt by Patricia C. McKissak and Cozbi A. Cabrera. We read the book over the course of several days as the content was rich, and had a lot of information that needed unpacking.
Our indoor classroom now has a handmade quilting frame where the Woods Primes are working on a quilt that Amy made that graphs the high and low temperatures of the end of February (and beyond) with stitching.
Upon seeing an image of this kind of quilting frame in the book, Noa remarked, “I think it looks like the quilt loom like we have in the studio, except it's an actual thing not just an upside down table.” Earlier that day some children were stitching on our classroom ‘loom’ and Alicia said while stitching, “It’s not as fun if you don’t have a community of friends around you. I said that because I tried stitching at home and it wasn’t as fun.”
Halfway through the book we paused and we realized some children in the class had previously learned about freedom quilts connected to the underground railroad and wanted to make connections between those quilts and the quilts of Gee’s Bend.
RMS: They are like talking about quilts but also telling a story. Like talking about a story through the quilts. People in Back history made quilts to tell a story. Instead of books they make quilts, it’s how they communicate and show about something that happened a long time ago.
N: When Black people were enslaved they were not allowed to learn to write or read so they used pictures in quilts to communicate.
Understanding history and the passage of time is a developmental stretch for many of these young children and we wanted to make sure to present this important information in a way that they could understand, so we paused to ask the children… What is history anyway?
K: History is the past.
L: History is something historic.
O: History is something important that happened a long time ago.
F: The history of something.
M: Something that happened before but not like yesterday, more like a long time before.
V: History is something that is going to happen in the future.
L: History happened in the past.
N: Here’s an example of history, black slaves are in history. History is things that happened a long time ago that were wrong for the world and people helped to stop them, or things that couldn’t happen.
RMS: I once watched a show about mummies that was in history and it was actually real, and white people were used as slaves too!
Al: Slaves that were white?!
Teacher: The mummies were a part of history in a country called Egypt. Egypt is far from the United States, and it is true that the pyramids where mummies were buried in were built by slaves. Slaves that were white and brown and black built the pyramids. Even in the United States there were slaves that were from different backgrounds and had a variety of skin tones. Slavery was a part of history and it was unfair!
Al: Good thing we know that it’s not fair so we can make a new kind of history!
Teacher: Is history always about things that were unfair like slavery?
N: No. History is mostly about things that happened that were important. Sometimes they were about things that were wrong, sometimes it’s about things that were right.
Teacher: What about what Via was thinking about? Is history something that is going to happen in the future?
Al: History is things that change. It can also be like generations. Every day there is change, history can change. Like every day we can change history so the future can be a good history.
We then created a timeline made of a string hung on a section of wall and explained that the string represented time. If we were to talk about the time of the dinosaurs that would be way far away from the wall past the end of the soccer field. When there were slaves building pyramids that housed mummies, that was way before this period of Black history in America that we are talking about. We broke our timeline into five parts; American Slavery, The Fight to End Slavery, Segregation,The Civil Rights Movement, and Progress. We made a plan to revisit this timeline as we continue to learn about Black textile artists in history.
B: I remember when we read the book about Martin Luther King, that was a part of the Civil Rights Movement and my grandma was a part of that too when she marched with Martin Luther King in history.
Teacher: Martin Luther King and so many other people in America were a part of the Civil Rights Movement including Bea’s grandma!
Kids: Thousands?
Teacher: Even more!
Later in the book when the period of ‘progress’ was mentioned, we paused to reflect on what that word meant.
RL: It doesn’t sound like progress, cause progress is like not finished but in good shape, so it might not be finished but it’s also not in good shape.
F: Progress is hard work!
L: Progress is something that you make and it works!
The book described ‘Meaning’ or ‘Memory’ assigned to certain fabrics, and we asked the children... Do you have any fabrics that are meaningful to you?
W: There’s a little thing that was outside of a store for free so I decided to take it. It’s rainbow and kind of fuzzy and we use it as a cloth at my house.
M: I have a special tiny little blanket that I had since I was a baby and one of my moms told me that it was a puke blanket and I puked and drooled on it when I was a baby!
S: I still have a blanket from when I was a baby and I still use it. It’s yellow and white
K: I stitched onto a towel
O: There’s a piece of cloth that is in my basement that my mom used when she lived in the house and had a studio there. There were these shelves that were my desk and a black fuzzy piece of fabric.
R: I have these two yellow washcloths that are like this big and they are really special to me because we used to have them in my bathroom at the Dickinson St. house which was so long ago and I had them when I was two. I have this special pillow I’ve had since I was born and my grandma mawmow made it and we call it ‘the green pillow’.
R: When I was little I made this cool quilt thing that I snuggle with.
P: Once Oona made me a blanket when I was a baby and I still snuggle it. I have a stuffy that Oona gave me when I was a baby and it’s a deer named Deery. I lost it but I have a new one that reminds me of it.
D: I have tons of blankets. I have a dinosaur blanket from Aunty Beth and my sheets have all kinds of animals on them, and my other sheets have all different colorful lines.
F: We have an astronaut blanket and it reminds me of when Dorothy and I pinned it to the floor over a vent and it puffed up.
L: I have this special blanket that reminds me of one of my cousins. The blanket that my cousin gave me I had since I was a baby and it has stripes.
An: I have a special mermaid blanket that is one of those that has holes and is made of fabric
V: There’s this blanket I had when I was a baby and I was born and had a baby blanket that got turned into a dreamcatcher. There’s this blanket that I had when I was a baby that is white and has stuff on it
Al: I have this fuzzy pink blanket I’ve had since I was a baby.
Here are a few photos of the paper quilt that we started inspired by the beautiful patterns in the Gee’s Bend Quilts.
