I'm L'Merchie Frasier.

I am a visual#activist and I work in the arena of uncovering and developing history as story.

So I work to correct the history, to tell the truth.

I'm a fiber artist and so I work in# different mediums in the language of the cloth.

[Music] I am a member of the Women of Color Quilters#Network.

The founder Dr.

Carolyn Mazloomi says we create soft landings for hard#stuff.

And so I think that that really describes the kind of work that we're#engaged in in these quilt narratives.

When I think about the so-called American#Revolutionary space, I'm trying to examine what has been left out that it's not just this story#of the Declaration and the Independence and the forefathers, but it is the efforts especially of#those who are at the the root of the society to bring forward what true freedom would really look#like.

Crispus Attucks was a enslaved man.

Around 1750, he escapes and runs to Nantucket where his mother was from and he learns whaling.

So he's on the sea and has this taste of freedom for#20 years before he is here on March the 5th, in the Boston Massacre.

He is said to be the# first one to die in the revolution of America.

One of the people I have had the opportunity to research is Mary Ellen Pleasant.

She was born in Georgia, enslaved there and was brought# to Nantucket with a family that owned a store.

She learned business acumen and by the time she# was a grown woman she was freed.

At the time of the California gold strike, she and her husband# moved to California.

So she begins a restaurant and has a boarding house and she listens to#those who are wealthy speaking about stocks and she becomes one of the first African-American# women who is a millionaire.

Her nickname was the mother of civil rights.

There are cases that# she brings for the integration of transportation.

She also builds a 30 bedroom#mansion.

It's featured in the quilt.

African American people have had a lot of travail, have endured and it's a continuous journey to overcome what has been a tumultuous history.

But#look at the ability to rise above all of that.

[Music] There's a program called Entre Familia where#women who have conditions of homelessness, drug abuse, traumatic circumstances are housed to help them recover.

And so I was commissioned to work with the#residents to create poetry and quilts.

You can put I am real.

I am honest.

I'm a savior, too.

I want#to put a savior down.

You can put it down there.

Some of them had never created poetry before.

Some of them had never sewn in their lives.

But this enabled them to be able to contribute# where they didn't think they were powerful.

The program culminated in an exhibition of their#quilts.

They saw their work on the walls and it was truly a transformative moment and their#children were happy and you know just laughing about it.

Oh that's my mommy did you know so it is work that is creating confidence to get over our trauma through the arts.

I was very, very proud of the work that they did together.

I have the commission to do a sculpture for the# first fire station built in Boston in 30 years.

I decided to think about the firefighters rescue mission and used real people silhouettes from the community in that sculpture.

One of the features, iconic features of#my quilts is the concentric circle and the use of perforated steel allowed#for almost an illusion of fabric.

With it being installed on that fire station and then lighting the sculpture at night, there was the delight of honoring the firefighters with the community.

One of the lessons I have learned is#that whether we're participating in the medium of literary art, visual#art, public history, monumental art, that we're all engaged in a fight to bring#justice, to restore.

And when we fight, we win.