Pieces of Freedom

Pieces of Freedom: The Emancipation Sculpture of Edmonia Lewis and Meta Warwick Fuller argues that material culture, and specifically the sculptures of nineteenth-century African American sculptors, Mary Edmonia Lewis (1844-1909) and Meta Warrick Fuller (1877-1968), are important historical artifacts of the Black emancipation experience. Through the Black bodies of the newly emancipated, Lewis and Fuller rendered both an artistic visualization of the Black emancipation experience and a historical counternarrative to the Lost Cause. As fine art, Lewis’s Forever Free and Fuller’s Emancipation statues are permanent images of a people’s strength and agency in the face oppression; as pieces of history, they tell the compelling story of the injustices and sacrifices, as well as accomplishments, made by so many in their pursuit of freedom. Their work also delivers a strong gendered narrative on the contributions and sacrifices made by newly-emancipated Black women, reflective of Lewis’s and Fuller’s own experiences with race and gender discrimination. Lewis and Fuller’s emancipation sculpture can teach us much about the social, economic, and political history of African Americans after emancipation. By integrating the artists’ visual and historical narrative of Black emancipation with the personal stories of the newly-freed, we see a lived history of ordinary Black Americans who accomplished extraordinary things in their pursuit of freedom. Their stories, told through the artistic legacy of Edmonia Lewis and Meta Warrick Fuller, are the heart of this book.