First picture: Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. A black man born into slavery in Alabama, he was an eyewitness to history: the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the steady rise of African American urban culture in the South.
To read more, click here:
Second picture - A beautiful plane made by Cesar Chelor (born 1720 in Wrentham, MA), a slave owned by the earliest American plane maker, Francis Nicholson. He was freed in Nicholson's will, in which he was also given Nicholson's tools and workbench.
To learn more, read these articles:
https://www.tpt.org/antiques-roadshow/video/antiques-roadshow-appraisal-cesar-chelor-plane-ca-1755/
http://memorialhall.mass.edu/turns/view.jsp?itemid=6256&subthemeid=15
Third picture: Slavery to Freedom Museum
Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience
ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism