Like a patchwork quilt, history is pieced together from many different stories, not all of them written. Sometimes one person's tale can change our view of the past.
Jacqueline Tobin, a writer and college professor, came across such a tale one day in a Charleston, South Carolina, marketplace. There she met Ozella McDaniel Williams, who was selling quilts. "Did you know that quilts were used by slaves to communicate on the Underground Railroad?" she asked Tobin. Her question sent Tobin on a five-year journey of discovery. In a new book called Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, Tobin and co-author Raymond Dobard stitch together research about slave quilts with one family's history.
Williams told an amazing tale that had been handed down from her grandmother to her mother to her. She said the colors, patterns and stitches of quilts formed a secret code used by slaves to guide them safely along the Underground Railroad.
Maps To Freedom
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. It was a system of escape routes to freedom for
slaves. The road to liberty was full of danger.
According to Williams, one very secret part of the route was the use of quilts. Slaves used quilt patterns as "visual maps" to help remember important directions and warnings on their long journey.
They also used quilts to send secret messages to one another. Each quilt pattern had a meaning. The quilts, says Tobin, show "slaves crafted their own way of escape."
Few original slave quilts exist. So far, only Williams has shared the story of the secret quilt code. But, Dobard says, "other families' stories are remarkably similar." He and Tobin hope their book will encourage others to "listen and pass on the stories of our elders."