In a new series of quilts, celebrated Chicago artist and activist Dorothy I. Burge honors the radical legacy of Black veteran freedom fighters whose struggles exceed the battlefield. Through textile and portraiture, Burge traces a lineage of Black resistance that links military service, abolition, civil rights, and antiwar organizing.

Presented in the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall, built to memorialize Union Civil War veterans and their families, Burge expands on this history. Her series begins with Harriet Tubman, whose Civil War service was inseparable from her larger struggle against slavery, and extends to the Fort Hood 43, Black soldiers who refused to deploy to Chicago for “riot control” during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Together, in Burge’s hands, these quilts become a counter-archive: a practice of stitching together memory, mourning, political education, and freedom struggle. 

Freedom Fighters asks how Black veteran histories change when understood through struggles against slavery, racism, state violence, and endless war rather than through nationalism alone.

Featuring artist Dorothy I. Burge.