Last night I stumbled upon this You Tube video interview of Sistah Quilter April Shipp. She talks about her THREE YEAR dedication to stitching the quilt Strange Fruit: A Century of Lynching 1865 - 1965. This video is 10 minutes long and was filmed at Michigan State University as part of the Quilts and Human Rights exhibit held there in 2008. Ms. Shipp's quilt is 12 pounds and includes the names of more than 5,000 African American men, women, and children lynched in the US. I cried watching this video. Honor to Laura Nelson.
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6 comments:
bittersweet.
Kyra,
I wasn't going to listen to the entire 10 minute video, but I could not stop. What a labor of love! What dedication! I kept thinking I would see the quilt at the end of the video and it was not there. But I knew you would not "bring us this far...", so I came back here and went to your message and clicked on the link.
What an impressive work of art!!
The research..the individual names...the color scheme...
I certainly would like to see the original.
Thanks so much for telling us about this. I'm going now to send some others over here.
It's not over. African American Frederick Jermaine Carter (26 years old)was found hanging from a tree in a white Mississippi suburb on Friday, December 3, 2010. USA Today reported it as a suicide, but the NAACP contests the findings and believe it was a lynching.
Recently, I found this photo of a noose hanging light fixture on Flickr here ---> http://flic.kr/p/btvzp2
Amazing. 5,000+ names on the quilt. And those are just the names that are known. I would suppose the experience of making it ran the gamut of emotions.
Thank you April, for making this cruel world richer and better.
Bless you and thank you April for remembering our people. God bless you April. Thank you.
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