Building a Garret to Tell the Story of an Escaped Slave

On a scorching hot day this past week, more than a dozen local students toiled on the Bryan Center Plaza building a relic of the past. They didn’t mind the sweat: by the end of the afternoon, what they built taught them about a little-known piece of North Carolina history and helped them understand a little better the flight to freedom of a brave runaway young female slave.

The students, part of the John Hope Franklin Young Scholars program (JHF) at Duke, recreated the small garret or crawl space that 22-year-old Harriet Jacobs survived in for nearly seven years after escaping her master in Edenton, N.C.

 The JHF program trains local teens to explore hidden histories on a creative level. Each year the program tackles different historic themes from the little-known Civil Rights struggle during the Civil War to the migration of people from four continents. This year the programs focus is on African Americans who crafted their way to freedom. 

The year-round program is led by David Stein, a senior education program coordinator for the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs. Stein said the program is valuable at a time when many elementary schools have stopped teaching history to focus on the tested subjects of math, reading and science.

“One of John Hope Franklin’s legacies was to find hidden histories and bring them to light,” Stein said. “We want to continue that tradition.”  

Scholars in the JHF program chose one of six craft-focused groups and alternated workspaces to create story pieces that will help explore their next “hidden history.” They learned how to make cipher disks for decoding secret messages, pop-up books, gourd instruments such as a Shekere, thumb pianos, and corn husk dolls out of material that would have been available during that time. The experience of making these items helped the students connect to the lives of others, such as Jacobs, who escaped slavery in 1835 and went on to chronicle her experience in a book promoted by the abolitionist movement.

“Harriet Jacobs is a perfect example,” said Stein. “She was an obscure figure until historian Jean Yellin showcased her work in the 1960s. That’s the spirit of what we’re trying to do with the Young Scholars.” 

A highlight of their immersion week was creating a replica of the garret Harriet hid out in. The Scholars and a parent volunteer assembled it on Tuesday. The wood was covered in gray paint to give an aged dust-like look and was displayed for a week on the Bryan Center Plaza.

The students created other items to recreate the period. The Shekere instruments included colorful glossy African gourd drums covered in beads and the Akonting, the folk lute of Jola people. The corn husk dolls reenacted what young girls such as Harriet Jacobs would have played with. Other dolls were made of scrap cloth, sewn together, stuffed with cotton and topped with clay to give the dolls eyes. Pop-up books were created with pieces of scrap paper that told short stories of several Freedom Crafters, including Harriet Jacobs. 

Anthony Aguilar, a ninth-grader who is going on his fourth year in the program, describes it as a “cool experience.”

“It’s a good program,” Aguilar said. “You make a lot of friends. The best part is learning about the hidden mysteries. Before we discussed their stories, I didn’t know much about them at all.”

While some students are fresh into their JHF journey others find it hard to say goodbye to a program that’s been part of their lives for many years. Izzy Salazar, who will be attending Wesleyan University in the fall, looked back on her seven years in the program.

“I love history, and with this program were able to research parts of history that we are not taught about in school,” said Salazar. “We are able to do projects we wouldn't be able to do in school. I enjoyed the opportunity.”