JSYK: Voter Suppression, Quilts, & The Women of Gee's Bend (Patreon)

Here's a post perfect for Women's History Month. In this video, find out how the women of Gee's Bend helped their community and put it on the folk art map. 

If you want more information, I've pulled some great reads, including a fantastic piece on how Gee's Bend quilters established their own collective in the 2000s after renewed interest:

The exhibition revived what had been a dying art in Gee's Bend. Some of the quilters, who had given in to age and arthritis, are now back quilting again. And many of their children and grandchildren, some of whom had moved away from Gee's Bend, have taken up quilting themselves. With the help of Arnett and the Tinwood Alliance (a nonprofit organization that he and his four sons formed in 2002), fifty local women founded the Gee's Bend Quilters Collective in 2003 to market their quilts, some of which now sell for more than $20,000. (Part goes directly to the maker, the rest goes to the collective for expenses and distribution to the other members.) - Fabric of Their Lives (Amei Wallach)

Nancy, who figures she’s made close to 300 quilts so far, says, “When I can’t sleep at night I lay in bed and come up with designs.” When she was  young, she remembers watching her mother sitting in front of the fire and cutting out fabric squares, throwing the scraps in the trash pile. Nancy pulled these out and told her mother, “I want to quilt.” Her mother taught her how to sew the pieces together in a block. This went on for a few years, until one day her mother took all her blocks and quilted them together for her and said, “when you get married this will be your wedding quilt.” And it was. - S.W. Alabama Girlfriend Getaway feeds body and soul (Janice Nieder)

View the different types of Gee's Bend Quilts here 

You can check out New York Times articles, too. 

1969: 

1969:

2003:

More References:

Can You Copyright A Quilt? (Alexandra Marvar) 

Could Incorporating as a Town Save Gee’s Bend, Alabama? (Alexandra Marvar)

Freedom  Quilting Bee 

'The Quilts of Gee's Bend':A Showcase of Distinctive Work by African-American Artists (Neal Conan)

Short Documentaries:

How a Group of Women in This Small Alabama Town Perfected the Art of Quilting 

The Ferry: A Civil Rights Story