Follow the Drinking Gourd – The Little Dipper and the North Star

At least as far back as the ancient civilizations, skywatchers have noticed that specific star formations look like ladles or dippers–devices used for drinking. Drinking from ladles was especially common among rural people and fieldhands. A ladle or dipper – image from Amazon The constellation of the Big Dipper looks almost exactly like the above…

Paintings that Depict The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Charles T. Webber “The Underground Railroad, also called Fugitives Arriving at Levi Coffin’s Indiana Farm, a Busy Station of the Underground Railroad, is the best known of artist Charles T. Webber‘s paintings. The painting shows a large family of escaped Southern slaves being received in the Northern winter by a group of white…

Jonkonnu and Winslow Homer’s Painting Dressing for the Carnival

Dressing for the Carnival – Winslow Homer – The Metropolitan Museum of Art “In this Reconstruction-era painting, Homer evokes the dislocation and endurance of African American culture that was a legacy of slavery. The central figure represents a character from a Christmas celebration known as Jonkonnu, once observed by enslaved people in North Carolina and,…