Thursday, February 10, 2000
Student quilts show slaves' path to freedom
BY SUE KIESEWETTER
Enquirer Contributor
UNION TOWNSHIP — Each of the 12 squares on the paper quilt on which 9-year-old Luke Null was working tells part of the story of the Underground Railroad.
It is a story that fourth-graders in Staci Hathaway's class at Hopewell Elementary School are telling pictorially through nine-or 12-panel quilts — the same way that messages were passed among slaves in the South.
“The slaves used the quilts — they were made of fabric — to show a safe house,” said Luke, who worked with Tyler Tucker, Steven Rice, Andrew Fairbanks and Michael Phillips. “We wanted 12 (panels) because it's more exciting and creative.”
In one panel the boys drew a cemetery to depict the slaves who lost their lives while trying to escape to freedom. Across three panels the boys penned the word “freedom” in blue marker to represent the rivers they followed northward toward Canada.
“The safe houses were the ones that had a star on a red house,” said Michael,10.
The quilts depicted the forest where slaves hid during the day, the North Star that guided them, the plantations from which they were escaping, the mountains they crossed.
“We're learning about how slaves got away,” said Emma Dorgan, who designed her quilt with Danielle Watkins and Emily Robbins.
The book Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, which the class read before beginning the project, inspired the quilts, Ms. Hathaway said. It tells the story of a slave girl who made a quilt to lead slaves to freedom.
The students used crayons, markers and other materials for construction paper panels, then glued them to a larger single sheet. The class spent about 10 days on the project.
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Student quilts show slaves' path to freedom
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