Vanessa VanBumble

The Story Behind the Square...

"My quilt square represents the community, and the community coming together through the planting of trees. The apples on the tree represents the fruit of education. The mountains symbolize the location where most of the schools were built. Here in the floral community, we are at the Anderson Rosenwald School, and this is where we were learning about the schools in general, so I thought we should include the location,  which is the Appalachian Mountains. And just in North Carolina, there were 813 Rosenwald Schools. The sun in the brightly colored sky in the background represents hope, and the Rosenwald Schools gave an education to the African American community, and this gave them hope for a better future.

In the video, Dorothy Ray Coon says that the students played normal games like hopscotch and basketball, and this was important to me because it showed that even the living conditions the African American children had to endure outside of school, in the society they  were living in during the time period, the schools were a safe place for them to not only learn and grow, but also to have fun and live in general, and I thought that was important."

-Vanessa VanBumble