Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Quilt Festival - TPR's In Focus - Sept. 29, 2026

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Quilt Festival - TPR's In Focus - Sept. 29, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Janice Hawkins Cultural Arts Park on the
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  main campus of Troy University, featuring the International Arts Center,
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  the Fred Noll Hollis Museum, and the Hua Bao
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  Zhu Gallery. More information at troy.edu/artspark.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. The artistic quilts of
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  Gee's Bend, Alabama are famous all over the world.
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  Today, Kim Kelly, Executive Director of the Freedom Quilting Bee
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  Legacy, joins us with the story of the quilt makers
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  and a preview of the upcoming October 3rd
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  airing of the Quilts Festival.
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  Kim Kelly, welcome back to Troy Public Radio from Gee's
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  Bend, Alabama. Carolyn, it's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me again.
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  Kim, there's a big festival coming up toward the end
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  of the week. We are having our airing of the Quilts Festival, our 5th annual,
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  on October 3rd, beginning at 9 in the morning.
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  We'll go until 5. Meet some of our quilters, learn some stories,
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  eat some great food. We're going to have some panel discussions and the
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  Dexter Avenue Baptist Church's choir is going to be with us.
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  Great opportunities to learn about our community.
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  This is sort of a special anniversary year. What is it?
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  The Freedom Quilting Bee was established in
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  1966 as a quilting cooperative.
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  We are celebrating the 60th year of the
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  Freedom Quilting Bee. Remind us of the history of Gee's
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  Bend and the quilters. We're going back into another
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  century, and it has to do with America's heritage. Can you share that?
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  Sure. The community on County Road
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  29 of Alberta and Gee's Bend was established in
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  1816 as a plantation by Joseph Gee.
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  There's a point at which Joseph Gee lost his land and
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  his nephew Mark Pettway from North
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  Carolina took over the property and he brought down
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  120 enslaved people, walked them down from
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  North Carolina to this bend in the Alabama River,
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  and it sustained a plantation until Emancipation,
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  and then it became a community of sharecroppers.
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  And during the Depression, the mercantilier,
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  the merchant to whom the Gee's Bend community was beholden,
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  bought everything on time— their seed, their farming implements.
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  He passed away, and his heirs swept through Gee's Bend
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  and took everything. They took quilts, they took farm animals,
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  they took crops. Farming equipment. They left this community
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  destitute, and the Red Cross had to come in and feed
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  the people of Gee's Bend. Farmers had to be fed by the Red
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  Cross because they had no means of production anymore.
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  And so the FDR administration bought
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  the entirety of the Gee's Bend Plantation because sharecropping was a racket
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  anyway. They bought the entirety of the Gee's Bend Plantation and sold it
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  back to the descendants of those people who had been
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  enslaved on that plantation. And so the people who now
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  own the property are their descendants. This community has
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  been living in community for over 200 years. Art historians
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  will tell you the reason why the quilts of Gee's Bend
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  are so advanced is because they've been learning from each
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  other for a long period of time. So Gee's
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  Bend is a phenomenal place. It's a place of community, of family.
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  Because they've been together for so long, they know their heritages.
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  They can tell you who their 4th and 5th great-grandparent
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  was because they know that through oral history. The design of the
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  quilts relates to West Africa and the
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  Clotilda, this last slave ship of the United
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  States, comes into the story. What's the link between
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  all of those? There's a girl by the name of Dinah Miller who at 12
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  years old arrived in Mobile Bay on the Clotilda,
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  on the last slave ship stolen from Benin.
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  As she grew up, she eventually settled in Gee's
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  Bend. Historically speaking, we credit her as
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  the one who brought the quilting aesthetic to
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  the location. Now Quilting is, for them at the time, wasn't about
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  aesthetics. It was about keeping their families warm, using every piece
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  of cloth you had, old dress tails, old coveralls, any bit
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  of material to put as the top to a quilt with remnant
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  cotton from the cotton gin and fertilizer sacks as
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  the backing to make a quilt to keep your family warm because it gets cold
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  in rural Alabama. The shacks they were living in had holes in the floors,
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  the walls, the ceilings. So those quilts were used
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  to stuff under doors, to hang on walls, to lay 3 or
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  4 of them on top of you when you slept so that you would be
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  warm through the night. Because the only place where there was heat was usually in
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  the living room where the fireplace was. So all those bedrooms were cold.
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  So the quilts, in their beauty, were utilitarian.
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  You needed them to be able to survive the cold, harsh winters of
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  Alabama in your ramshackle shacks. At the airing of
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  the Quilts Festival, will people get a chance
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  to meet the quilters in person? Well, sure. So the airing of the Quilts
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  Festival is October 3rd. All of the quilters will
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  have their booths, and I encourage you to speak with them,
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  ask them about their stories, their histories. One thing I've
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  learned since working with these women is every quilt has a story,
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  and they can tell you the story of every quilt they've ever made.
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  So you may look at a quilt at their booth and find it
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  aesthetically pleasing. You may find a connection to
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  a quilt through the story they tell you. So we will have
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  87 vendors. We'll have 10 information
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  booth vendors, one of which will be the Clotilda Descendants Association.
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  Another will be the Africatown Heritage House out
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  of Mobile. It was Ms. Dinah Miller is how we connect to Mobile.
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  She came across on the Clotilda and eventually settled in Gee's
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  Bend. So the connections that we have to Mobile are
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  vast. This is a tremendous opportunity for your listeners to
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  find out firsthand the Gee's Bend story in the
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  story of America. It's truly an amazing historical perspective
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  because these people have been living in community together for over 200 years.
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  We have 5th and 6th generation quilters who are in their 20s.
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  They've learned from their grandmothers what their grandmothers
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  learned from their grandmothers. And we're teaching children
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  on a regular basis about their heritage. And also
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  we're teaching them how to quilt because quilting was about family.
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  Everybody participated in the quilting process back in the day.
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  We want the children of this community, the adults of this community
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  to come together as they once did as a family. We do these classes at
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  the Freedom Quilting Bee, the building at 4295 County Road 29
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  in Alberta, Alabama. And we hold these classes and the kids become
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  so enthralled in what they're doing with their hands,
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  with their art, listening to these quilters and learning
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  from them on how to sew a piece together and then how to put the
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  batting inside the piece that they're making and then the backing. And we let
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  them do that. What a story of heritage that is going forward
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  into the future. Before I let you go, can you give us a website
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  for information so that your listeners can make their plans?
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  You bet. The Airing of the Quilts Festival on October 3rd, you can
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  go to airingofthequilts.org and you'll learn from
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  the families of these quilters, who they were, what they did,
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  why they're important and significant. This festival, the 5th annual,
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  is co-organized by 2 nonprofits
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  that work in this community. Us, the Freedom Quilted View Legacy. But also
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  Soji's Bend Heritage Builders.
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  Many of you probably have heard about collaborations
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  between Gee's Bend and major designers,
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  the most recent one Ralph Lauren. Those collaborations
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  are the product of Soji's Bend Heritage
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  Builders. Fashion designers come here to work with
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  these women because they are considered masters of
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  their craft. And we are the co-organizing sponsors of Freedom Quilt TV
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  Legacy and Soji's Bend Heritage Builders, 2 local
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  nonprofits putting on this festival that we expect over 3,000 people to be
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  here with us. Kim, it's a great weekend coming up, and I want to thank
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  you for your preview today. I enjoy telling these stories
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  because they are amazing American history stories.
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  Thank you for allowing me the opportunity. That was Kim Kelly,
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  Executive Director of the Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy.
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  The airing of the Quilts Festival will be held at Gee's Bend,
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  Alabama next Saturday, October 3rd,
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  and more information can be found at the airingofthequilts.org
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  website. Thanks for joining us for In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts,
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  and feel free to get in touch at infocus@troy.edu.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is This listener supported
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  Troy Public Radio.