Description
Created by American artist Romare Bearden, Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy is a story that will touch your heart. Included as part of our new exhibition, Romare Bearden: Artist, Activist, and Advocate of the Promised Land, we know you’ll love Li’l Dan’s story just as much as we do! Plan your visit to the MOA to see Bearden’s work up close and in person, and then bring Li’l Dan home with you!
About the Book
Li’l Dan, a slave on a Southern plantation, loves to play his drum. When a company of Union soldiers announce that the slaves have been set free, Dan has no place to go. So he follows the soldiers, who make him their mascot. But Confederate soldiers attack, and Dan discovers that he is the only one who can save his friends.
The only children’s book written and illustrated by artist Romare Bearden, Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy will touch your heart. Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written a personal introduction to the book. Here he describes his own memories of the artist while Bearden created this memorable tale.
“This touching tale, colored by the sensitivity and warmth of Romare Bearden’s art, tells of an intense moment in history through the eyes of a child at freedom’s door. How fortunate that this story was not lost forever. We loved it!” —Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee
