<I>Freedom Quilt</I>
date: label: Date
content: ca. 1975
name: label: Created by
content: Jessie Bell Williams Telfair, American, 1913 - 1986
notes: label: Caption
content: Quilter Jessie Telfair was inspired to make this quilt in the mid-1970’s as an expression and memorialization of her experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, Telfair was encouraged by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s efforts to register African American voters in Southwest Georgia. Telfair decided to register to vote. When her employers learned of her actions, they fired her from her job as a cafeteria worker at an elementary school in her small community of Parrott, Georgia. The quilt is an affirmation of her personal freedom as well as a statement about the freedoms guaranteed to all American citizens. Telfair later made two more quilts of nearly identical design, one is in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the other is at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
label: Description
content: A pieced and appliqued cotton quilt designed and quilted by Jessie Telfair. The quilt consists of bold blue block letters on red squares, arranged to spell the word [FREEDOM] along a horizontal axis, repeated in six rows. Smaller white square blocks separate the red squares. The backing is white.
place: label: Place made
content: Parrott, Terrell County, Georgia, United States, North and Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: American South
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Civil Rights
label: Topic
content: Craftsmanship
label: Topic
content: Design
label: Topic
content: Folklife
label: Topic
content: Freedom
label: Topic
content: Resistance
label: Topic
content: Rural life
label: Topic
content: Suffrage
label: Topic
content: Textile design
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design
label: Classification
content: Textiles and Quilts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Virginia Dwan
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2017.40
objectType: label: Type
content: quilts
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: No Known Copyright Restrictions
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: cotton
label: Dimensions
content: H x W: 73 × 87 in. (185.4 × 221 cm)