Quilts and their makers have always fascinated me. How someone can imagine a design, break it down into small pieces, and stitch it all together using geometry, light machinery of which they are masters, and a large dose of patience which I do not possess seems almost miraculous to me. When I first learned about the quilters of Gee’s Bend many years ago, I learned that they had originally produced all the quilts with no machinery. It was all hand-made. Imagine tens of thousands of times that needle met cloth with determined nimble fingers and produced patterns not unlike the most beautiful stained glass windows in cathedrals.

The women of Gee's Bend, who have been quilting since their ancestors where enslaved in this country, began to develop their unique design and style of quilting during the Great Depression and the fall of cotton prices. They would use whatever materials they had an on hand which would often include men's work shirts and pants and their children's clothes some of whom died at early ages. In this way, the quilts simultaneously served as photographs, memorials, and scrapbooks. 

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In 1966 with the help of  Episcopal priest Father Francis X. Walter the Freedom Quilting Bee was established as a was established as a two-fold endeavor. First, it was a way for Black women to create financial agency through their craftwork. Second, it helped to fund the civil rights movement in Alabama. Gee’s Bend is about 60 miles from Selma. The previous year was the famous Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King had visited Gee’s Bend earlier in the year to encourage the residents to join the march.

Owing to the natural and human-made geographical isolation, their unique pattern stylings would develop over time from inspiration taken from their surroundings to stylized motifs which would appear in several of their quilts. While each design pattern was created by an individual artists, they would come together to hand-stich and complete the quilts to reinforce community ties.