LUCY MINGO Nine Appliqué Blocks—”Tulip” Variation (1960s) // Cotton and cotton/polyester blend; 96 x 96 inches
via Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Descending from several generations of quiltmakers, Lucy Mingo became one of Gee’s Bend’s leading spokespersons during the civil rights era. Since marrying David Mingo in 1949, she has lived in the area Gee’s Benders refer to as “Over the Creek.” Her work is in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Rockford Art Museum.
Souls grown deep foundation
The residents of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, are direct descendants of the enslaved people who worked the cotton plantation established in 1816 by Joseph Gee.
After the Civil War, their ancestors remained on the plantation working as sharecroppers. In the 1930s, the price of cotton fell, and the community faced ruin. As part of its Depression-era intervention, the Federal Government purchased ten thousand acres of the former plantation and provided loans enabling residents to acquire and farm the land formerly worked by their ancestors. Unlike the residents of other tenant communities, who could be forced by economic circumstances to move—or who were sometimes evicted in retaliation for their efforts to achieve civil rights—the people of the Bend could retain their land and homes. Cultural traditions like quiltmaking were nourished by these continuities.
Souls Grown Deep Foundation
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