Out of all the artifacts in the Zoom In exhibit at History Colorado, Associate Curator of Black History Acoma Gaither has a clear favorite. She walks over to a large quilt.
“I think it’s really beautiful, it kind of diverges from the usual geometric patterns of quilts,” she said. “It's kind of free-flowing, and that's why it's called a crazy quilt.”
Gaither said it was made by Florence Bell, a formerly enslaved woman who made her way to Colorado with her husband in the late 1800s. She worked on this quilt for three years, using 318 spools of silk thread. It was presented at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Gaither mentioned that it was more common at the time for upper-class individuals to work on a "crazy quilt," due to the higher quality materials and time needed to make it. But that did not stop Bell.
“When we think of African Americans during this time, late 1800s, we don't think of them as artisans, usually,” she said. “That we have, like, material evidence of this woman and the way her mind was thinking at that time is incredibly special.”
The Zoom In exhibit debuted at the museum in 2017 as a showcase of 100 objects that tell the state’s story. Five of those objects speak to the Black history and legacy here – an important part of reflecting on Colorado’s 150 years as a state.
Across the room is a hammer that was owned by Charles Rothwell, a resident of Deerfield – an organized African American community in Weld County in the early 1900s. On the handle, it says “Black Cowboy.” Gaither says historians believe he helped out with a lot of the farming and livestock activities when he lived there.
Other objects include tennis shoes used during Former Governor Wellington Webb’s Sneaker Campaign in the early 1990s, and a Shriner hat from Leroy Smith – the first African American licensed to sell guns in Colorado and a pillar musician in Five Points.
“They might just look like an object, but they really hold a community story behind them, so I think it kind of personalizes these stories” she said. “There's somebody who used this to enrich themselves, enrich their families, enrich their communities.”
Gaither hopes visitors see how Black individuals were a major part of building Colorado’s and the country’s rich cultural heritage. She mentioned the Declaration of Independence.
“It starts out with, ‘We The People,’” she said. “Think about who that means, who had to come together to really build up this country, economically, socially, we're a diverse society.”
History Colorado has other exhibits that reflect on the contributions of the Black community to the state and the nation, including the 38th Star gallery and the more recent exhibit, Moments That Made US. That exhibit features objects like an original copy of the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the ink well that was used to sign the end of the Civil War.
