Freedom Quilting Bee
Originally begun by African American women to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.
In December 1965 the Episcopal priest Francis X. Walter was in Wilcox county Alabama, when a quilt on a clothesline outside a small home caught his eye.
[1] He received a seven hundred dollar grant and traveled through the Black Belt looking for quilts that a friend of his would sell in New York at auction.
[2] Originally Father Walter intended on using the majority of the extra money earned from the quilts once they were sold at auction to fund the Wilcox Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the remainder to be paid to the quilters themselves.
But upon reflection, Father Walter noticed that there could be a need for a quilting co-operative, and he decided that the artists themselves should receive the money from the auctions.
Working for travel expenses alone, he brought their quilts to New York City and helped the cooperative make deals with Bloomingdales and Sears.
The 4500-square-foot building was constructed by the husbands of the quiltmakers and other nonprofessional workers because the project only had funds to pay one skilled builder.
The sale of the land to the Bee's members had been so unlikely that they bought all they could, 17 acres, with plans to resell parcels to blacks, largely shut out of the real estate market.
[2] In 1970, Reverend Xavier found a white Catholic nun, Sister Catherine Martin, to help with office duties such as typing, invoicing, and bookkeeping twice a week.
Some of the women had never had an opportunity to be paid for their labor; the Bee's payments enabled them to raise the standard of living for themselves and their families.
[1] Commonly confused with the Quilters of Gee's Bend, the Freedom Quilting Bee was a separate organization with a similar mission and overlapping membership.
Witherspoon, an influential political leader in Rehoboth, worked as the head manager of the organization for over twenty years.
[8] Other important founding members were Minder Pettway Coleman, Aolar Carson Mosely (pronounced a-O-lur), Mattie Clark Ross, Mary Boykin Robinson, China Grove Myles, Lucy Marie Mingo, Nettie Pettway Young, and Polly Mooney Bennett.
[10] Mrs. Coleman was born in Wilcox county in October 1903, and lived just one mile from the famous Gee’s Bend in the Quilting Bee’s hay day.
Minder’s most famous quilting style is the Double Wedding Ring; she also created her own pattern that resembled two eggplants joined together.
Within a few months, however, her grandson, a brick mason, re-built her a home on the same land as a gift to his grandmother who had sponsored his education.
[2] Mattie Ross was described as a farmer, quilter, a choir member at Oak Groves Baptist Church, and a civil rights activist.
Mattie quilted in many different styles including the Missouri Star, and a pattern known as the Double T.[2] Miss China Groves Myles was born in 1888 in Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
“Ma” Willie and her husband Eugene Abrams were tenant farmers, which they continued until the Quilting Bee provided them with an alternative way to earn a living.
[1] A New York Times review called the quilts "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.
