Gee's Bend (officially called
Boykin) is an isolated, rural community of about seven hundred residents, southwest of
Selma, in the
Black Belt of
Alabama. The area is named after Joseph Gee, a
planter from
North Carolina who acquired 6,000 acres of land and established a cotton plantation in 1816 with seventeen enslaved people. The Gee family operated the plantation until 1845, when, to settle significant debts, they relinquished ownership, including 98 enslaved people, to Mark H. Pettway, a relative, enslaver, and then sheriff of Halifax County, North Carolina. The following year, Pettway relocated to Gee's Bend, transporting his family and furnishings in a wagon train while 100 enslaved men, women, and children were forced to walk on foot from North Carolina to their new life in Alabama. Many members of the community still carry the Pettway name. After emancipation, many formerly enslaved people stayed on the plantation as
sharecroppers, which left them perpetually in debt to the landowners. As cotton prices fell throughout the 1920s, farmers in Gee's Bend were forced deeper into debt. In the summer of 1932, a
Camden merchant who had been advancing credit to more than 60 families in the Bend died. When his estate foreclosed on their debts and raided Gee's Bend for anything of value, including livestock, farm equipment, and stored food, the impoverished community was driven into complete destitution. Through federal intervention, the residents of Gee's Bend therefore became landowners of the land worked by their enslaved forebears. Cultural traditions like quilt making were nourished by these continuities. In the early 1960s, in response to members of the community's growing participation in the
civil rights movement, white officials in the county seat of Camden discontinued ferry service to Gee's Bend, contributing to the community's isolation, cutting it off from basic services, and hindering members' ability to register to vote. Ferry service was not restored until 2006. In February 1965,
Martin Luther King Jr. brought his civil rights campaign to Gee's Bend. At the time, no African-American had ever successfully registered to vote in Wilcox County, despite comprising nearly 80% of the population. Many quiltmakers in Gee's Bend braved the threat of violence to march with King in Camden in March 1965, including
Aolar Mosely and her daughter
Mary Lee Bendolph. In March 1966, more than 60 quiltmakers from Gee's Bend, Alberta, and surrounding communities met in Camden's Antioch Baptist Church to found the
Freedom Quilting Bee. The Bee, one of the few Black women's cooperatives in the United States, landed contracts with major retailers, such as
Bloomingdale's and
Sears, to produce made-to-order quilts and other quilted products, helping to inspire a national revival of interest in patchwork. It officially closed in 2012, a year after the death of its last original board member,
Nettie Young. == Twenty-first century ==