FAITH RINGGOLD’S SLAVE RAPE STORY QUILT: STITCHING THE HISTORIES OF ENSLAVED AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN

Faith Ringgold is known for narrative quilts focusing on issues of gender and race in popular culture and art history. But one of her earliest works, and the subject of this thesis, is Slave Rape Story Quilt (1985), which addresses the history of slavery through three media—none of which, at first glance, immediately registers this subject. The top, or face, of the quilt’s surface is comprised of tie dye patches of fabric made by quiltmaker Marquetta Johnson. A large off-white cross shape occupies over half of the quilt and is comprised of both graphic and written elements. The black and white aquatint line etching at the center of the cross depicts an amalgamation of abstracted figures while the text occupying each branch of the cross tells the story of an enslaved woman named Beata. This thesis explores how and why Ringgold addresses slavery by way of these three media. Focusing on the central portion of the quilt, I consider the relationship between the narrative text and the relatively abstract imagery. I argue that the central image, the abstracted aquatint line etching, and the narrative story on Slave Rape Story Quilt work together to provide a first-hand account of the emotional and physical trauma of slavery. While the image evokes the emotional realities of the transatlantic slave trade, the story on the quilt explicitly addresses the physical trauma inflicted upon enslaved women. The text of the quilt does this by describing the gruesome rape of both Beata and her mother, leaving little to the imagination about the horrors enslaved women experienced. Although the tie dye portion of the quilt may seem out of place in relation to a work about enslavement and rape, I contend that it speaks to African arts, crafts, and textile traditions. By looking to and evoking African textile styles and techniques, Ringgold reconnects Beata with her ancestral homeland and also works to mend and repair the trauma and damage of enslavement. Slave Rape Story Quilt thus revises the history of enslavement to include the experiences, perspectives, and techniques of African American women. In the final quarter of the twentieth century, when popular culture was revisiting the history of slavery, Ringgold used this quilt to insert women back into the historical record.