1. The Art of Necessity
by Thomas Canfield
Like kaleidoscopic portraits in tion from the modern world at
a family album chronicling adver- large.
sity, struggle and triumph, the Secluded on three sides within
extraordinary quilts created by a massive, oxbow-shaped curve of
generations of women in Gee’s the Alabama River in one of the
Bend, Alabama, are a remarkably nation’s poorest regions, Gee’s
personal, picturesque record of Bend is about 30 miles southwest
their community’s resilience under of Selma and seven miles directly
difficult circumstances. In a mate- across the river from the Wilcox
rialistic age of manufactured com- County seat of Camden. The com-
modities, the fact that the deep- munity, spanning an area five
rooted art of quilting has endured miles long and eight miles wide,
in Gee’s Bend is a testament not comprises approximately 750
only to the community’s devotion African-American citizens. Their
to tradition but also the result of earliest ancestors were brought
prolonged geographical segrega- from North Carolina as slaves in
Cabins on the old Pettway Plantation. Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 1937.
Arthur Rothstein, photographer
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division
35

2. 1816 by Joseph Gee, who estab- After the cotton market
lished a cotton plantation there. crashed during the Great Depres-
Ownership of the plantation sion, the widow of a merchant who
changed twice before the Civil had extended credit to the families
War. Mark H. Pettway, the planta- of Gee’s Bend foreclosed on the
tion’s final antebellum owner, community in 1932. Arriving on
marched an additional 100 or more horseback, armed collection agents
took all the Gee’s Benders’ posses-
sions, including food, livestock,
farming tools and seeds. Only
emergency rations distributed by
the Red Cross alleviated the near-
starvation that families suffered
that winter. In 1934-35, supple-
mentary aid followed when the
Federal Emergency Relief Admin-
Annie Pettway Bendolph carrying water, istration provided small farm loans
Gee’s Bend, Alabama, April 1937.
Arthur Rothstein, photographer
as well as seeds, implements and
Library of Congress, Prints & livestock. As part of Roosevelt’s
Photographs Division New Deal in the late 1930s and
1940s, the government acquired
slaves there in 1845-46. They 10,000 acres of the land and made
walked over 700 miles from North no-interest loans to Gee’s Bend
Carolina to Alabama.
After emancipation,
the freed black popu-
lation remained on
the land, in virtually
unchanged circum-
stances, as share-
croppers and tenant
farmers. Many of
their descendants
retain the Pettway
name to this day.
Pettway girl. Gee’s Bend, Alabama, April 1937.
Arthur Rothstein, photographer
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division
36

3. Old cable ferry between Camden and Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection
residents, allowing them to pur- ditional gospel music in Gee’s
chase their small farms. Approxi- Bend during the following decade.
mately 100 Roosevelt Project Although the hamlet’s name was
houses were erected, along with a officially changed to Boykin in
general store, cotton gin, black- 1949 (the same year the first post
smith shop, sawmill, school and office was built), locals still refer
clinic. to it as Gee’s Bend, as do the road
The result was a self-suffi- signs. Electricity did not arrive
cient, landowning community of until 1964. Only one road, unpaved
African Americans who were until 1967, leads out of town. Gee’s
marked by a strong sense of iden- Bend had no telephone service or
tity and an indomitable spirit fos- running water until the mid-1970s.
tered in the face of hardship. In the Because of it isolation, Gee’s
1930s, Farm Security Administra- Bend was referred to as “Alabama
tion photographers captured the Africa” by other blacks in the deep
isolation of the residents, and the south. Yet the community’s inde-
Library of Congress recorded tra- pendence not only helped to
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4. As a result,
those few Gee’s
Bend residents who
owned cars had to
drive approximately
100 miles round trip
to get to Camden.
Reportedly, the
county sheriff at the
time stated that “We
didn't close the ferry
Alabama River ferry operator from Camden to Gee's
because they were
Bend,1939. black. We closed it
Marion Post Wolcott, photographer because they forgot
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division they were black.”
Today, while the
preserve the distinct traditions of town has four churches, it has only
quilting, story telling and gospel one post office and a grocery store.
music; it also led the people of Such basic facilities as the school,
Gee’s Bend to play a notable role in hospital and police station are
the civil rights movement. During located miles away, a fact that has
the voting rights activism of the only served to encourage the
early 1960s, many Benders rode ardent self-reliance of the Benders
the unreliable ferry across the river over time. Their isolation prevailed
to register at the Camden court- for 44 years, until a new ferry
house only to face armed law began operating in September of
enforcement, tear gas and jail. 2006.
Those Gee’s Bend residents who In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther
were property owners could not be King Jr. spoke at Pleasant Grove
evicted for their actions, yet further Baptist Church in Gee’s Bend. A
retaliation came with the termina- few days later, he spoke outside the
tion of the ferry service and loss of jail in Camden. Many Benders
jobs in 1962, part of an overall who attended were subsequently
effort to halt black civil rights jailed. Inspired by the strength of
workers from traveling between the community, King used the geo-
Camden and Gee’s Bend. graphical divide posed by the river
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5. as a rallying point, motivating sev- The quilts of Gee’s Bend
eral residents to join him in the reflect an artistry born from utility.
famous October 30 march from Their beauty emerges from, and in
Selma to Montgomery. After spite of, an inherited material
King’s assassination in 1968, dearth reaching back to the days of
mules from Gee’s Bend pulled the slavery. Many Benders had little or
wagon carrying his casket through no heat and lived in barely fur-
Atlanta. nished, ramshackle homes, so
In 1966, Francis X. Walter, an quilts provided warmth and protec-
Episcopal minister and civil rights tion from the wind, cold and dust.
worker, developed the idea of mar- While Gee’s Bend quilts look like
keting local talent to provide Minimalist art, their earliest cre-
economic empowerment for area ators were actually inspired by the
quilters. Farming came largely to a newspaper and catalog collages
close when a federal dam construc- pasted on their walls to provide
tion project, completed just south insulation. Quilts were often made
of Gee’s Bend in 1970, flooded of limited available materials,
thousands of acres of the area’s including feed and flour sacks,
most fertile farming land. Nearly rags and tobacco pouches. Some
one-third of the women in Gee’s artists fashioned “britches quilts”
Bend joined the Freedom Quilting out of castoff clothes, such as over-
Bee, an offshoot of the civil rights hauls, trouser legs and shirt tails,
movement designed to boost often employing such materials to
income and foster community keep memories of deceased rela-
development by selling their work tives alive. Yet until the outside
to outsiders. This cooperative, cen- world began applauding their
tered in the nearby town of quilts as art, the creators viewed
Rehoboth, provided some financial them as merely functional items.
relief to the community. In the late Old quilts were burned to repel
1960s, Gee’s Bend quilts were fea- mosquitoes, or used to mop up
tured in Vogue and Life magazines, motor oil and protect automobiles
and local artists received a long- from the elements.
term commercial contract to sew Today, the quilters of Gee’s
for several department stores. Bend have garnered nationwide
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6. acknowledgment and are being celebrated for their accomplishments.
Gee’s Bend quilts have appeared in museum exhibitions from New York
to Houston and San Francisco. Books, articles, short stories and films
have highlighted the unique stories of the quilts and their creators who,
for the first time in their lives, have a real income from their work.
In 2006, the U.S. Postal Service issued a series of Gee’s Bend stamps.
This recognition has helped to revive a once-dying community and the
nearly-lost art of quilting that has been passed down for generations from
mothers and grandmothers to daughters and granddaughters.
Thomas Canfield, who holds a Ph.D. in English with a specialty in Elizabethan
drama, is working on his second M.A. in theatre history and dramatic literature at
UMKC. He was the dramaturg for last season’s Rep production of King Lear, and for
the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Dr.
Canfield is also an English instructor at Grantham University and the dramaturg for
this season’s UMKC Theatre production of The Country Wife, William Wycherley’s
Restoration comedy.
Woman sewing a bedspread, Gee's Bend, Alabama. c. 1938–1940
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division
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