Lucy Terry Prince: The Griot's Voice, Peggie Hartwell

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Lucy Terry Prince: The Griot's Voice, 2012
Where object was made: Summerville, South Carolina, United States
Material/technique: cotton batting; machine quilting; machine embroidery; hand appliqué; nylon thread; machine appliqué; cotton fabric; cotton thread
Accession number: EL2017.038
Not on display

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Label texts

And Still We Rise

1746: Although the education of slaves was prohibited, some enslaved African Americans secretly learned to read and write. They began to record and share their stories, similar to the oral storytellers of West Africa, called Griots. In 1746, Lucy Terry Prince becomes the earliest known African American poet when she writes “Bars Fight.” Not published until 1855, the poem describes an attack between Native American and white families in Prince’s village in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

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