On This Day In Alabama History: Freedom Quilting Bee Cooperative Established

Alabama News Center | March 26, 2017 @ 7:08 am

By Graydon Rust
Alabama 200

March 26, 1966

A group of black craftswomen officially established the Freedom Quilting Bee cooperative in Rehoboth, Wilcox County. Often confused with the nearby Quilters of Gee’s Bend, the Freedom Quilting Bee formed to raise money for poor black women in the Black Belt during the civil rights movement. The cooperative hosted several auctions in New York under the leadership of Estelle Witherspoon as the price of the quilts rose from $10-15 to more than $100. The quilts, with patterns reflecting at least a century of black quilting in the area, sold at Bloomingdale’s, were featured in Life magazine and exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.

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