Gee's Bend, Alabama
Encyclopedia
Boykin, also known as Gee's Bend, is an African American
majority community and census-designated place
in a large bend of the Alabama River
in Wilcox County
, Alabama
. As of the 2010 census
, its population was 275. The Boykin Post Office
was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code
.
Gee's Bend was named for Joseph Gee, an early large land owner from Halifax County, North Carolina
who settled here in 1816. Gee brought 18 African American slaves with him and established a cotton plantation within the bend.
. The plantation started by Joseph Gee passed to his nephews Sterling and Charles Gee upon his death, along with 47 slaves. The brothers then sold it to their relative Mark H. Pettway in 1845 to settle a $29,000 debt. About a year later, the Pettway family moved from North Carolina to Gee's Bend, bringing about one hundred slaves with them. When slaves was abolished many of them continued working for the Pettways as sharecroppers. Many of the black tenants Arthur Rothstein
photographed were named Pettway. The white Pettway family owned the property until 1895, when it was sold to Adrian Sebastian Van de Graaff. Van de Graaff, a lawyer from Tuscaloosa
, then operated it as an absentee landlord
.
The Resettlement Administration
reports of the 1930s emphasized the isolation of the community, describing the unreliable ferry
that approached from the east and the muddy road that entered from the west. The community had received public assistance from the Red Cross in 1932 and federal and state aid in 1933 and 1934. Beginning in 1935, the Resettlement Administration made agricultural loans and offered farm and home management advice. In 1937, the average rural rehabilitation loan to Gee's Bend families was $353.41, and the agency reports speak of possible cooperative undertakings; a building campaign for houses, barns, a schoolhouse, and a sawmill. Residents were also encouraged to replace oxen with more efficient mules.
The agency's programs at Gee's Bend continued after Rothstein's visit. During 1937, the agency purchased the old Pettway plantation and two adjacent farms, divided the land, and rented it to the tenants. The following year, a nurse began working in the community, and construction began for a school, store, blacksmith
shop, and cooperative cotton gin. By 1939 enough visible change had occurred for Roy Stryker
to send Mary Post Wolcott to the community to photograph the signs of progress—to get the "after" pictures. During 1940s, many families at Gee's Bend bought their farms from the government for an average of $1,400 each. This was about $2,600 less per farm than the eighty-eight units had cost the government, a subsidy that seems to have been fairly typical for Farm Security Administration projects of this type.
Gee's Bend continued to fascinate outsiders. In 1941, New York City
speech professor and folklore collector Robert Sonkin
recorded music, recitations, discussion, and a Fourth of July program at Gee's Bend.
to the county seat of Camden
in order to try and register to vote, local authorities reacted by eliminating ferry service in 1962. The lack of ferry service forced the residents of the community to drive more than an hour in order to conduct business in Camden. The people of Gee's Bend would be without a ferry service for forty-four years.
In the 1990s, Congress allocated money to pay for a ferry service and operating costs, but the project floundered when the Alabama Department of Transportation hired Hubert Bonner, a boat builder who had never built a ferry. Bonner's ferry, completed in 2004, got stuck on a sandbar and did not pass Coast Guard inspections. Alabama then hired Hornblower Marine Services, http://www.hornblowermarine.com/ to rebuild the ferry that Bonner completed, fixing the problems to allow the ferry to pass the Coast Guard inspections. Hornblower completed retrofitting the ferry in May, 2006. The ferry service began anew on September 18, 2006, after dredging of the route was completed.
Calvin Trillin
devoted a 1969 The New Yorker
piece to the opening of the community's new sewing center, paid for with quilting bee revenues. In 1983, an exhibit in Birmingham
sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation included several of Rothstein's photographs of Gee's Bend, and an oral history project at the Birmingham Public Library
sent new researchers and a photographer to document a new generation of residents. Nevertheless the residents themselves have expressed some doubt that the attention they have received has improved their lot in life. In 1985, local historian Kathryn Tucker Windham
reported: "They say, 'Ain't nothing ever happened.'"
And then in 2002, an exhibition of their art work opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, organized by the Tinwood Alliance and everything changed. The show went to the Whitney Museum in New York City
and their art was hailed as "some of the most miraculous work of art America has produced." The show subsequently traveled to numerous other museums and the women have found gallery representation for their art. In June 2006, a second exhibition of quilts opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, also organized by the Tinwood Alliance, called "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt." It traveled to seven additional museums, including the Smithsonian, the final stop of the nationwide tour was the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the end of 2008. Many of the quilt makers have become well known and have traveled extensively to talk about their community and their art. Many now have real incomes for the first time and their work, and its success, has helped to reunite and revive a dying community. In August 2006, the United States Postal Service
released a sheet of ten commemorative stamp
s bearing images of Gee's Bend quilts sewn between c.1940 and 2001. The quilts and quilters are featured at their website
Worldwide who have licensed the designs from some of the famous quilts for use in Kathy Ireland products.
Kathy Ireland Worldwide defends their handling of the Gee's Bend quilter's royalties in a statement on their website:
Other members of the quilters group are unhappy with the lawsuits and felt they are an attempt of some members to go out on their own.
U.S. District Judge Callie Granade of Mobile dismissed the suits and said the parties would pay their own legal costs.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
majority community and census-designated place
Census-designated place
A census-designated place is a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes. CDPs are delineated for each decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places such as cities, towns and villages...
in a large bend of the Alabama River
Alabama River
The Alabama River, in the U.S. state of Alabama, is formed by the Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers, which unite about north of Montgomery.The river flows west to Selma, then southwest until, about from Mobile, it unites with the Tombigbee, forming the Mobile and Tensaw rivers, which discharge into...
in Wilcox County
Wilcox County, Alabama
Wilcox County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of Lieutenant J. M. Wilcox, who fought in the wars against the Creek tribe. As of 2010, the population was 11,670...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. As of the 2010 census
United States Census, 2010
The Twenty-third United States Census, known as Census 2010 or the 2010 Census, is the current national census of the United States. National Census Day was April 1, 2010 and is the reference date used in enumerating individuals...
, its population was 275. The Boykin Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
.
Gee's Bend was named for Joseph Gee, an early large land owner from Halifax County, North Carolina
Halifax County, North Carolina
-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:[[Image:HalifaxCountyCotton.wmg.jpg|left|thumb|A cotton field blooms in Halifax County....
who settled here in 1816. Gee brought 18 African American slaves with him and established a cotton plantation within the bend.
Early history
Boykin is a block of land enclosed on three sides by the Alabama River, within a horseshoe shaped turn of the river named Gee's Bend. It is within the Black Belt of AlabamaBlack Belt (region of Alabama)
The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, and part of the larger Black Belt Region of the Southern United States, which stretches from Texas to Maryland. The term originally referred to the region underlain by a thin layer of rich, black topsoil developed atop the chalk of the Selma...
. The plantation started by Joseph Gee passed to his nephews Sterling and Charles Gee upon his death, along with 47 slaves. The brothers then sold it to their relative Mark H. Pettway in 1845 to settle a $29,000 debt. About a year later, the Pettway family moved from North Carolina to Gee's Bend, bringing about one hundred slaves with them. When slaves was abolished many of them continued working for the Pettways as sharecroppers. Many of the black tenants Arthur Rothstein
Arthur Rothstein
Arthur Rothstein was an American photographer.Rothstein is recognized as one of America’s premier photojournalists. During a career that spanned five decades, he provoked, entertained and informed the American people...
photographed were named Pettway. The white Pettway family owned the property until 1895, when it was sold to Adrian Sebastian Van de Graaff. Van de Graaff, a lawyer from Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...
, then operated it as an absentee landlord
Absentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
.
The Resettlement Administration
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government....
reports of the 1930s emphasized the isolation of the community, describing the unreliable ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
that approached from the east and the muddy road that entered from the west. The community had received public assistance from the Red Cross in 1932 and federal and state aid in 1933 and 1934. Beginning in 1935, the Resettlement Administration made agricultural loans and offered farm and home management advice. In 1937, the average rural rehabilitation loan to Gee's Bend families was $353.41, and the agency reports speak of possible cooperative undertakings; a building campaign for houses, barns, a schoolhouse, and a sawmill. Residents were also encouraged to replace oxen with more efficient mules.
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
shop, and cooperative cotton gin. By 1939 enough visible change had occurred for Roy Stryker
Roy Stryker
Roy Emerson Stryker was an American economist, government official, and photographer. He is most famous for heading the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression and launching the documentary photography movement of the FSA.After serving in the infantry...
to send Mary Post Wolcott to the community to photograph the signs of progress—to get the "after" pictures. During 1940s, many families at Gee's Bend bought their farms from the government for an average of $1,400 each. This was about $2,600 less per farm than the eighty-eight units had cost the government, a subsidy that seems to have been fairly typical for Farm Security Administration projects of this type.
Gee's Bend continued to fascinate outsiders. In 1941, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
speech professor and folklore collector Robert Sonkin
Robert Sonkin
Robert Sonkin was an American scholar of speech, language, and music.-Life:Sonkin was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in the Bronx, New York, on December 25, 1910.. Sonkin, who held degrees from City College and Columbia University, founded the speech clinic at City College. He met Charles L...
recorded music, recitations, discussion, and a Fourth of July program at Gee's Bend.
Ferry Service
Gee's Bend became an important part of the mid-1960s Freedom Quilting Bee, an offshoot of the Civil Rights movement designed to boost family income and foster community development by selling handcrafts to outsiders. When large numbers of residents began taking the ferryFerry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
to the county seat of Camden
Camden, Alabama
Camden is a city in Wilcox County, Alabama, United States. The population was 2,257 at the 2000 census, at which time it was a town.-Geography:Camden is located at ....
in order to try and register to vote, local authorities reacted by eliminating ferry service in 1962. The lack of ferry service forced the residents of the community to drive more than an hour in order to conduct business in Camden. The people of Gee's Bend would be without a ferry service for forty-four years.
In the 1990s, Congress allocated money to pay for a ferry service and operating costs, but the project floundered when the Alabama Department of Transportation hired Hubert Bonner, a boat builder who had never built a ferry. Bonner's ferry, completed in 2004, got stuck on a sandbar and did not pass Coast Guard inspections. Alabama then hired Hornblower Marine Services, http://www.hornblowermarine.com/ to rebuild the ferry that Bonner completed, fixing the problems to allow the ferry to pass the Coast Guard inspections. Hornblower completed retrofitting the ferry in May, 2006. The ferry service began anew on September 18, 2006, after dredging of the route was completed.
Gee's Bend Quilts
Calvin Trillin
Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...
devoted a 1969 The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
piece to the opening of the community's new sewing center, paid for with quilting bee revenues. In 1983, an exhibit in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation included several of Rothstein's photographs of Gee's Bend, and an oral history project at the Birmingham Public Library
Birmingham Public Library
For the main library in Birmingham, England see, Birmingham Central Library.The Birmingham Public Library, a well-respected and one of the largest library systems in the southeastern United States, consists of 19 branches and a main or central library located in downtown Birmingham, Alabama...
sent new researchers and a photographer to document a new generation of residents. Nevertheless the residents themselves have expressed some doubt that the attention they have received has improved their lot in life. In 1985, local historian Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham was an American storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist. She was born in Selma, Alabama and grew up in nearby Thomasville....
reported: "They say, 'Ain't nothing ever happened.'"
And then in 2002, an exhibition of their art work opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, organized by the Tinwood Alliance and everything changed. The show went to the Whitney Museum in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and their art was hailed as "some of the most miraculous work of art America has produced." The show subsequently traveled to numerous other museums and the women have found gallery representation for their art. In June 2006, a second exhibition of quilts opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, also organized by the Tinwood Alliance, called "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt." It traveled to seven additional museums, including the Smithsonian, the final stop of the nationwide tour was the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the end of 2008. Many of the quilt makers have become well known and have traveled extensively to talk about their community and their art. Many now have real incomes for the first time and their work, and its success, has helped to reunite and revive a dying community. In August 2006, the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
released a sheet of ten commemorative stamp
Commemorative stamp
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event or person. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the...
s bearing images of Gee's Bend quilts sewn between c.1940 and 2001. The quilts and quilters are featured at their website
Quilters Lawsuits
In 2007 two members of the Gee's Bend quilting community filed lawsuits in US Federal Court in Selma, Alabama. The suit filed by Annie Mae Young alleged that dealers falsely claim to own the intellectual property rights to quilts made in Gee's Bend before 1984, including her work. They also improperly used her name and image to promote sales, the lawsuit alleges. The suit filed by Loretta Pettway, claims "gross exploitation" at the hands of several defendants. Both suits also list as defendants Kathy IrelandKathy Ireland
Kathleen Marie "Kathy" Ireland is an American former model, actress, and entrepreneur. She is the CEO and designer of her eponymous brand product marketing company, Kathy Ireland Worldwide.-Life and career:...
Worldwide who have licensed the designs from some of the famous quilts for use in Kathy Ireland products.
Kathy Ireland Worldwide defends their handling of the Gee's Bend quilter's royalties in a statement on their website:
Our agreement assures us that the quilter’s representatives are the proper place to send all quilt related earnings. This week a careful review of our files indicates that Kathy Ireland Worldwide has paid more to these representatives than our company has earned from the quilts project.
Other members of the quilters group are unhappy with the lawsuits and felt they are an attempt of some members to go out on their own.
U.S. District Judge Callie Granade of Mobile dismissed the suits and said the parties would pay their own legal costs.
External links
- Gee's Bend Ferry Website
- Handmade Alabama Quilts Find Fame and Controversy by Shaila Dewan New York Times July 29, 2007
- Soulful Shapes Multimedia story on the quilters of Gee's Bend, with images of the quilts and audio from one of the quilters.