On Feb. 22 a reception will be held for an exhibit of the "Sew Their Names Project" by the Mount Willing Quilters from Lowndes County that will be displayed through March 9.
The exhibit is a collaboration of the quilters with Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center (BBTCAC) and Wilcox ArtWorks (WAW). It will include quilts from Mount Willing Quilters, Yvonne Wells, and Wini McQueen.
There will be an artist talk featuring select Sew Their Name Project artists and organizers.
"...A quilting project in the rural Black Belt of Alabama brings communities together in the spirit of truth and reconciliation to commemorate the erased and forgotten lives of enslaved persons by stitching their names into memorial quilts, and telling the history of the Southern antebellum church’s support for slavery."
A press release from BBTCAC explained the origin of the project:
"In November 2021, quilters in the small, unincorporated town of Mt. Willing, in rural Lowndes County, came together to embroider names on 3” x 5” fabric blocks in the outdoor pavilion at the Snow Hill Christian Church. But the Mt. Willing Quilters were not sewing the blocks for their customary bed or lap quilts, which they donate to charity as part of a quilting ministry begun in 2005 through Snow Hill’s partner, the Lowndes County Community Life Center (LCCLC). Instead, on this sunny November day, they were sewing the names of enslaved persons, including those of some of their own ancestors, for use in a very different kind of quilting project.
Most of the slave names that the quilters were embroidering had never before been seen by the descendant community or the general public. They were buried in old microfilms and a few ancient record books in the special collection of the Samford University library...
Rev. Braxton and Judge Walker wanted to find a way to honor these individuals and ensure that their names would not remain invisible. That’s when they thought of the Mt. Willing Quilters. Led by Rev. Braxton—and spurred on by the racial reckoning brought about by George Floyd’s death, which popularized the phrase, "Say Their Names,” coined to bring attention to victims of racial injustice—the quilters took up the challenge of embroidering these previously erased names on fabric quilt blocks, and asked others to join them. This was the beginning of the Sew Their Names Project."
The exhibit was partially funded by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. along with The Black Belt Community Foundation, the Alabama Humanities Alliance, The Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Central Alabama Community Foundation.
It will be held at the Gallery on Broad in Camden from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
For more information, visit www.hopewellproject.net/sew-their-names.
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