|
The "Quilt Code" Hall of Shame
A
seemingly endless cavalcade of retailers (almost exclusively white) who use
slavery, African-Americans, and the "Underground
Railroad Quilt Code" as a marketing tool. Click on the photo to see the entire advertisement.
Got
a nomination for the Hall of Shame? Click here.
|
|
Ebay
seller member64852 (Ruby King) freely admits she "can't prove"
that this classic 1930s crazy quilt was made in 1830 by a slave, but that
doesn't stop her from advertising it as one. She says she's "selling
it more for what it could be than what it is" Click for details
|
Trish Chambers, who "prides herself on presenting history in her own unique style," has a special presentation on the "Quilt Code".
Ebay seller jimmpak
used fabric glue to "restore" this "Underground Railroad quilt".
But the cream blocks would originally have been red - colored with a post-Civil
War dye.
Ebay seller 92hackney's "Tubman" doll wears an "authentic" African fabric that didn't exist until the 1850s.
(The dress style also has no relation to antebellum fashions.)
|
"It's
all imagination," says Ohio quilt shop owner and "Code"
lecturer Rita Fishel, but "I want everybody to believe there were
signal quilts"-
and, presumably, to buy her "Code" quilt kits
.
Quilt instructor Eleanor Burns's
notorious "Quilt Code" pattern book and video
itsablackthang.com, the Hall of Shame's only known African-American member, offers an UGRR tote for $29.95. Two photos of
Tubman: one half-decapitates her, the other is missing her head entirely.
But a Code quilt has a front row
seat
|
HART
