—This is a guest post by Olivia Dorsey, an innovation specialist in the office of the Chief Information Officer. It also appears in the March-April issue of the Library of Congress Magazine.
Entering the living quarters of a late 18th-century plantation house, the last thing you might expect to see is a rainbow of colors, dancing in the breeze. Figures frozen in a moment of play trail tissue paper along worn, dusty floorboards. Through a veil of vibrant colors and textures, a portrait appears: A Black girl stares ahead, her hand gently perched on the back of a chair.
The piece, titled “Complex,” was one of many on view as part of artist Maya Freelon’s immersive exhibition “Whippersnappers: Recapturing, Reviewing, and Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children in the United States” at Historic Stagville in Durham, North Carolina.
The Bennehan-Cameron family enslaved more than 900 people at Stagville, once one of the largest plantations in the state, at at its peak in 1864.
Today, the state-run site maintains several original buildings, including a barn, the quarters where enslaved families lived and the Bennehan house. The exhibition, which showcased Freelon’s signature tissue-paper sculptures, drew upon Library materials and other archival images to honor and reimagine the lives of enslaved Black children.
Freelon’s pieces were located throughout the Bennehan house and inside a large timber-framed barn on the property. Portraits of children in the home hold special meaning for Freelon, who wanted to uplift them “in an actual home they weren’t even allowed in.” One tissue-paper sculpture contained printed names of the more than 200 Black children who lived at Stagville.
As a 2024 Library of Congress Connecting Communities Digital Initiative artist/scholar in residence, Freelon researched Library collections seeking 19th-century images of Black children that represented “innocence, beauty, light and love amidst a terrible situation.”
Her search often was difficult. Images of Black children in joyous moments during this period are rare, pushing Freelon to expand her search criteria. Occasionally, she would make a discovery in the Prints and Photographs Division, like a 1900 photo of a young Black girl smiling while holding flowers.
The exhibition opening’s theme was “play,” evoking the innocence of children held in bondage. Attendees, including descendants of people once enslaved on the plantation, participated in childhood games such as “Down by the River” and “Miss Mary Mack.”
The opening event was a collaborative offering. Nnenna Freelon, the artist’s mother and a well-known jazz singer, sang nursery rhymes and invited attendees to accompany her with instruments. In the barn, Allie Martin, an ethnomusicologist at Dartmouth College and Freelon’s fellow 2024 CCDI artist/scholar in residence, presented a motion-activated soundscape. By entering the building, attendees could play different noises, from Martin’s vocals to wind from the cemetery where Martin’s grandmother is buried, transforming the barn into an instrument.
Freelon’s work centers Black children navigating unimaginable circumstances during enslavement. Her artwork recognizes them, memorializes their experiences and highlights their innate joy.
“Whippersnappers” was part of the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites Art on the Land initiative, which seeks to build connections to sites of memory through artistic collaborations, installations and gatherings.
“‘Whippersnappers’ brings these images out of the silence of the archive into a contemporary moment where the viewer can imagine more just futures,” said Johnica Rivers, NCHS curator at large.
Projects like Freelon’s, which ran through January 2025, honor the experiences of Black communities while showcasing Library materials to new audiences.
Since 2022, the Mellon-funded CCDI has supported individuals and institutions in exploring the Library’s digital collections and highlighting the perspectives of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American and other communities of color.
“Maya Freelon’s powerful offering to our youngest ancestors,” NCHS Director Michelle Lanier says, activated “a posture of healing through reclaiming and reframing memory.”
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