News Release

Veterans Inspire Quilt Pieces

Date: November 7, 2012

American war veterans from World War II as well as Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan engaged high school students at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site as part of an effort to honor soldiers on Veterans Day. Whether it was hearing stories of combat in Afghanistan, facing battles in Normandy, or the monotony of marching and singing in cadence, the students left the park with a rich appreciation for American military service.

Park staff partnered with the Dream Rocket Project so that they could better link students from the heartland with the conflicts and issues soldiers contend with beyond the American shores. Many of the soldiers connected their stories of fighting for freedom and democracy with the park's story of fighting for equality and world free of discrimination.

High school art students were at the site to create quilt pieces that honored military service and could be displayed for Veterans Day. The quilts will eventually end up as part of a major art exhibit linking the exploration of space with community art programs. The Dream Rocket Project enlists the help of students worldwide to create a collage of quilt pieces that tell the stories of peace, freedom, equality and education and that will be sewn together in order to fully wrap a Saturn V Moon Rocket by June of 2014.

Brown v. Board of Education NHS has partnered with program coordinator Jennifer Marsh to create hundreds of these quilt pieces. Marsh will need a total of 8,000 individual quilts in order to fully enshroud the Saturn rocket. Parks interested in working with Marsh to create Dream Rocket quilts can contact her by clicking here for more information.