Our Ancestor's Somber Story: Green Pastures: The Birds That Didn't Learn How to Fly

Artist Name: Thornton Dial Sr.

Nationality, Life Dates: African American, 1928-2016

Artwork Title: Green Pastures – Birds That Did Not Learn To Fly
Medium: Quilt, paint on canvas wood

Credit Line, Accession: Artist Gift

In this painting, Thornton Dial shows us 13 birds that are 

hanging on a wire.  He painted this work as a young man growing 

in the segregated South, living through lynching and Jim Crow. 

The birds in this painting represent freedom in his symbolic

universe. What emotion do you feel of the birds inability or denial to fly?