Bisa Butler Quilts Harlem Hellfighters into History
The 1919 photo of the Harlem Hellfighters, a record held by the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ (), is juxtaposed with quilt artist Bisa Butler's interpretation of the image, "Don't Tread on Me, God Damn, Let's Go! β The Harlem Hellfighters," on display at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC. Front row, left to right: Pvt. Eagle Eye, Ed. Williams; Lamp Light, Herbert Taylor; Pvt. Leon Fraitor; Pvt. Kid Hawk, Ralph Hawkins. Back row, left to right: Sgt. H.D. Primas; Sgt. Dan Storms; Pvt. Kid Woney, Joe Williams; Pvt. "Kid Buck" Alfred Hanley; and Cpl. T. W. Taylor. Quilt image courtesy of Bisa Butler.
By Victoria Macchi | ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ News
WASHINGTON, March 1, 2023 β Artwork inspired by a World War Iβera photo of Black soldiers known as the Harlem Hellfighters turns a ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ record into a larger-than-life quilt at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC.
Bisa Butler crafted "Donβt Tread on Me, God Damn, Letβs Go!βββThe Harlem Hellfighters" after finding the image during online research.
βIt was one of the thrills of my life to be able to study and create artwork based off of the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘β magnificent photo,β Butler said of the image, taken by the International Film Service.
βIβm used to seeing beautiful photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, so I assumed I was looking at them,β the artist told ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ News. βThen I read the caption, and it said the yearβand that was World War I.β
from February 12, 1919, is part of the series, American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs, 1917β1918. It depicts nine Black soldiers of the 369th Infantry Regiment aboard the USS Stockholm, awaiting arrival in New York City following the armistice that ended the war.
βThey have that superhero look to them. Theyβre kneeling, like theyβre about to launch out of the screen. You can feel that vibrant energy, all handsome. They all look like theyβve got the world at their fingertips,β Butler said.
New York's Colored Regiment Returns Home on Stockholm, 1919. Photo by the International Film Service. .
Bisa Butler's "Don't Tread on Me, God Damn, Let's Go! β The Harlem Hellfighters," 2021. Pieced, appliqued, and quilted cottons, silk, wool, and velvet. Image courtesy of Bisa Butler.
Drawn in by the composition, the faces, and the Hellfighters name, Butler set out to make the quilt, which is approximately 9 feet tall by 13 feet wide.
She renders the black-and-white image in saturated tones and abundant textures, each manβs visage with a distinct combination of quilted patterns.
Butler felt a similar draw to the image as Barbara Lewis Burger, a retired ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ Still Picture Senior Archivist, who in 2017 wrote a about the soldiers in the photo.
Through robust research (based largely on U.S. Army and New York National Guard records and Veterans Affairs burial files) Burger deepened the menβs histories beyond the photoβs caption and went on to inform Butlerβs own research for the quilt.
A detail from the quilt portrait "Don't Tread on Me, God Damn, Let's Go! β The Harlem Hellfighters" by Bisa Butler.
Both Butler and Burger focused on raising the image, the names, and the history from obscurity.
βI'm so thankful that the men pictured in this image continue to receive the tributes they so rightfully deserve,β Burger said.
Butler went even further; sharp-eyed viewers will note that two of the men wear medals around their necks that arenβt pictured in the original photo.
βSome of them are wearing the Congressional Gold MedalβI put it on them,β Butler explained.
The men all wear the Croix de Guerre, awarded to the regiment in 1918 by the French government. But in creating the quilt, Butler said she wanted to perform an act of what she calls βrestorative historyβ with her artwork.
βThese young men never received that high commendation from the American Army at the time, though they got it from the French,β Butler explained. βAmericans didnβt think they had the capacity to fight with them. So I said, βyou are getting this big piece of gold bling.β To have this piece in a museum, near the White House, with those medals onβitβs important. I needed it to be there.β
Butler based the medals on those awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen in 2007.
The same year that Butler finished the Hellfighters quilt, 2021, the 369th Regiment was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Joe Biden. It was only the third time the medal was awarded to an African American military group (Tuskegee Airmen and the Montfort Point Marines, awarded in 2011, both from World War II).
The Hellfighters quilt will be on display at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC, a branch museum of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, until April. .
Quilted Portraits
The soldiers were not alone in inspiring Butler. The artist often uses photos from federal archival records as the basis for her quilts that elevate Black history.
βI, tooβ is based on the image of a young Black man in Hillhouse, Mississippi. Photographer Dorothea Lange .
Black boy. Hill House, Mississippi, July 1936. Part of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection. Photo by Dorothea Lange. .
"I, too," by artist Bisa Butler. Cotton, silk, wool, and velvet, quilted and appliqued. Titled after an eponymous Langston Hughes poem. Image courtesy of Bisa Butler.
That same year, Lange 60 miles south, in Greenville, Mississippi. That in turn became an βodeβ to James Baldwin, in Butler's words, titled βI am not your negro.β
A portrait of Harriet Tubman rendered on a dusky purple background is rooted in a (part of the Smithsonian Institution) and the Library of Congress.
Quilted portrait of Harriet Tubman, "I go to prepare a place for you," 2021, by Bisa Butler. Image courtesy of Bisa Butler.
Butler also transformed an featuring Black baseball players from Morris Brown College in 1899, which itself was from a series of W.E.B. Du Bois albums of Black Americans in Georgia shown at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900.
African American baseball players from Morris Brown College, with boy and another man standing at door, Atlanta, Georgia, from 1899 or 1900, from the album "Negro life in Georgia, U.S.A.," compiled and prepared by W.E.B. Du Bois and exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. .
Quilted portrait of the Morris Brown College baseball team. "To God and Truth," 2019, by Bisa Butler. Printed and resist-dyed cottons, cotton velvet, rayon satin, and knotted string, pieced, appliqueΜd, and quilted. . Image courtesy of Bisa Butler.
Special thanks to retired ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ senior archivist Barbara Lewis Burger for her original research and assistance on this story, and writer-editor Cara Moore Lebonick for her archival research.