Speaker Shares African-American History Through Art

Speaker Shares African-American History Through Art
Stephen Towns, a quilting artist, shares his art’s connections to African-American history.

(Stephen Towns discusses one of his works, titled “Birth of a Nation.” | SOURCE: Author)

“For us to have survived the Middle Passage, to have survived enslavement, for us to survive the civil rights movement, we are a miracle,” remarked Stephen Towns at W&L’s Wilson Concert Hall in the Lenfest Center on March 4, 2025.

Stephen Towns came to campus to talk about his art as a part of an exhibition that would last from February 17 to March 14, 2025. His section, called “Loud as the Rolling Sea,” featured detailed quilting work underscoring significant moments in African-American history and aiming to highlight the contributions of ordinary African Americans to the United States.

Towns hails from South Carolina but works in Baltimore, Maryland, where he operates a self-taught quilting practice. His artwork has been featured in places like the Baltimore Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Towns began his talk by discussing how his witness of the 2015 Baltimore riots led him to examine the “history of violence in America and whose violence is justifiable.” This led him to analyze Nat Turner’s Rebellion, an 1830s Virginia slave revolt that led to heightened fears of slave uprisings throughout the Antebellum South.

The rebellion became the subject matter for his collection of Nat Turner story quilts. Towns compared Turner’s insurrection, which was designed to “kill every white man, kill every white woman, [and] kill every white child,” to “the story of Moses and the Israelites.” He even added that “there is a lot of magic and mysticism” in Turner’s violent story.

Towns also discussed another one of his quilts, “Birth of a Nation.” Its aim, according to Towns, was to “honor all of the women who've sacrificed and literally fed our forefathers.” The quilt depicts the Betsy Ross flag in the background, with a black woman taking care of a white baby.

Another quilt which features flags is “Marcus Garvey.” It highlights Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey’s political ideals, such as Pan-African nationalism and racial separatism. Towns’ piece parodies Betsy Ross creating the United States flag, instead featuring black women creating a Pan-African flag. In the background, Towns portrays “the black starship [sic] that [Garvey] was planning to use to take black Americans back to Africa.”

After Towns concluded the discussion of his artwork, he answered audience questions. Towns spoke about his artwork’s features, such as connections to Renaissance-era art, but also discussed the process of quilting. He outlined how his quilts begin as drawings; he then projects those drawings onto a larger piece of paper before cutting and sewing the different pieces of the quilt.

Towns was then asked about the presence of butterflies in his art, which he said represent group resilience: “you can kill one [butterfly], but you can't kill the spirit of the whole flock.” He then added that this symbolism of a butterfly is “a metaphor for black people in America and all that we're going through.”

To conclude, Towns discussed his artistic journey and future projects. Though a self-taught quilter, Towns received a BFA from the University of South Carolina but was unable to become a full-time artist until 2018. He attributed his quilting skills to “YouTube University,” stating “crafters are very generous with their information on how to do things.”

He then finished with a discussion about some of his recent exhibitions, such as a piece related to a segregated park in Florida and another series on “the Midwest and the migration of blacks from the South to the Midwest.” Ultimately, Towns’ art is a “testament to the [black] people who sacrificed their lives” and commemorates their pivotal role in American history.