Roland Freeman Honored by National Endowment for the Arts!

Congratulations to Roland Freeman, one of 12 recipients of the National Endowment of the Arts - National Heritage Fellowships. According to the NEA:

"Roland Freeman, recommended as the Bess Lomax Hawes Award recipient, was inspired by the socially conscious Depression-era photography of Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava as well as the Farm Security Administration photographers. At age 14, he met the author/folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, who also greatly influenced his life's work. A native of Baltimore, he began photographing in the DC area in the late 1960s. In 1968, he participated in and documented the Poor People's Campaign and the Mule Train trip from Marks, MS, to the nation's capital. Even while working as a stringer for Time and Magnum Photos, including coverage as a White House photographer, his real passion throughout his career has been the documentation of Southern folk culture."

Freeman is a pillar in preserving African American quilt and quilting history! He has documented sistah and brother quilters since his landmark Something to Keep You Warm: The Roland Freeman Collection of Black American Quilts from the Mississippi Heartland (1981). Raise your hand if you're one of the many quilters Roland Freeman photographed over a twenty year period and captured in the must-have book and must-see exhibit A Communion of the Spirits: African American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories. Freeman photographed quilters in more than 38 US states. Friends thought I was crazy when I invited Mr. Freeman to stay at my home in Kansas City when he made his cross-country trip to capture quilters in the Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska area.... I had never met him, but was amazed by his National Geographic photographs. A collection of Mr. Freeman's quilts are at the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, MS. Blessings to Roland Freeman for the NEA honor! (Photo: Self-portrait of Roland L. Freeman with nine of his quilts.)

NEA National Heritage Fellows - Quilters

The National Endowment for the Arts - National Heritage Fellowship is one of the highest honors the U.S. Government bestows on a traditional artist. Over 300 artists have been honored since the first year in 1982. Carver and painter Elijah Pierce of Columbus, OH received an award in 1982. Honored African American quilters and those who have so lovingly preserve our quilt heritage are listed below. Click on each name to read NEA bio.

• Roland Freeman, author of A Communion of the Spirits - 2007
• Mozell Benson, quilter from Opelika, AL - 2001
• Hystercine Rankin, quilter from Lorman, MS - 1997
• Nora Ezell, quilter from Eutaw, AL - 1992
• Gussie Wells, quilter from Oakland, CA - 1991
• Arbie Williams, quilter from Oakland, CA - 1991
• Lucinda Toomer, quilter from Columbus, GA - 1983

Roland Freeman at 10th Anniversary celebration

Congratulations on the 10th Anniversary of Sisters in Stitches Joined by the Cloth! Join them for their 10thAnniversary Quilt Show, "A Decade of Designs, Celebrating Our Culture," April 27 and 28, 2007 10 a.m. to 6 p.m at the St. John's Episcopal Church, 322 S. Franklin Street, Holbrook, MA.

This exhibit features African American quilters from the Boston Metropolitan area displaying 75 quilts. Admissions is $5.

GUEST SPEAKER: ROLAND FREEMAN (photo) - Saturday, April 28, 2 p.m. Roland Freeman is a photographer and author of Something to Keep YouWarm: The Roland Freeman Collection of Black AmericanQuilts from the Mississippi Heartland, and A Communionof the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers,and Their Stories. Admissions to the lecture is $10.

For more info contact: Susi Ryan at http://us.f572.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=isusquilts%40yahoo.com.

NY Times - UGRR Quilt Controversy

Check out the January 23rd edition of the New York Times. There's an article about the controversy surrounding the $15.5 million Frederick Douglass Circle being built in Central Park. The plans call for a large granite quilt - with quilt blocks sharing slave escape routes. Algernon Miller is the memorial's designer. Several historians are challenging the memorial on several fronts: 1) there is no documented evidence that secret-coded quilts ever existed, 2) there is no connection between Mr. Douglass and these quilts, and 3) to memorialize secret-coded quilts is to give credence to a myth.

There are several websites that discuss in more details problematic aspects of secret-coded quilts. Check out:

• Patricia Cummings recent article "The Secret Quilt Code and The Underground RailroadCommentary or How Does Telling Lies Honor Black History?"
• Kimberly Wulfert's collection of Quilts & The Underground Railroad articles
• Leigh Fellner's Underground Railroad "Quilt Code" research - available as free PDF

What do you think? Will a historian ever find documented records of secret-coded quilts used by slaves?

Update 4/3/07 - Check out article in Time Magazine, with quotes by Roland Freeman and others.

Something Warm on eBay

The rare catalog, Something to Keep You Warm, by Roland Freeman is now on eBay... starting price is $300. I've only seen a copy of this catalog when Roland's exhibit Communion of the Spirits was on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. The catalog was behind glass. Do have a look at the aution (I have no idea who the seller is) ... it's rare that you'll see this catalog!