On Juneteenth, she celebrates the role quilts may have played in Underground Railroad

For Edith Edmunds, the art of quilt making is inextricably linked to the Black struggle for freedom. That’s why she plans to be sewing on Juneteenth.

“It’s what I love to do,” she told NPR in a phone interview.

Edmunds, who is 99 years old, has been making quilts since she was seven, when she first learned to sew on a pedal-powered treadle machine using scraps of fabric. But it wasn’t until 50 years ago, after reading a magazine article, that she learned how runaway enslaved people in the South used encoded messages in quilts to make their way north along the Underground Railroad.