Susan Scott Hester's My Voice on Cloth Master's thesis

Congratulations to Susan Scott Hester for her University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill master's thesis titled "My Voice on Cloth: Story Quilters of the South Carolina Lowcountry."

Her 140 page thesis examines the "genealogy of African American Quilt Scholarship" and the pictorial quilts, individual and artistic experiences of African American art quilters from a particular area in South Carolina. Specifically she focuses on ten quilters: Cookie Washington, Catherine Lamkin, Winifred Sanders, Peggie Hartwell, Dr. Marlene O-Bryant-Seabrook, Lenora Brown, Arianne King-Comer, Dorothy Montgomery, Zelda Grant, and Vermelle "Bunny" Rodrigues.

You can download a copy of the thesis from the University of North Carolina Library - or by clicking here. Congratulations Susan! Enjoy!

Princeton Theological Seminary Students Unveil New Quilt

Congratulations to Princeton Theological Seminary students Anjeanette Allen (M.Div., 2012), Rachel Daley (M.Div., 2011), and Chinor Miguel Lee (M.Div., 2013) for the unveiling of a community quilt project commemorating the breadth and scope of African American religion. The three students were in Yolanda Pierce’s Fall 2010 African American Religious History class.

Ms. Allen, who earlier wrote a paper about the significance of quilting in the African American religious tradition, organized the community quilt project. The quilt is thirty-six-inches by thirty-six-inches and includes sixteen blocks. Cynthelia Cephas, a fourth-generation African American master quilter, taught participants quilting, as none of the three students were quilters. Blocks within the quilt feature events such as the beginning of the African American Pentecostal movement and the March on Washington as well as individuals such as Harriet Tubman and Jarena Lee, the first woman authorized to preach by Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

How terrific is it that students can create quilts as part of their school projects! I'd love to learn more about the individual quilt blocks, how about you!? Congratulations again to Anjeanette, Rachel and Chinor! Enjoy!

Christa Hardy defends her dissertation

I was excited to read today about the upcoming, December 3, 2007 dissertation defense by Christa Hardy, a second-generation librarian from Tuskegee, AL, at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. According to the university's website:

Christa Hardy will defend her proposal, "Piecin' a Quilt: Jessie Carney Smith and African American Women's History." A copy of the proposal is available in 112 LIS Building. All those interested are welcome to attend. The committee includes Linda Smith, Christine Jenkins, Erik McDuffie (African American Studies/Gender & Women's Studies/History), and Karla Moller (Curriculum & Instruction)

Jessie Carney Smith was also an librarian and recorder of black women's history. Go Christa!

Muhjah Shakir, Bioethics Quilt Project

Last month the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care held a conference around the 35th anniversary of the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" and the 10th anniversary of President Clinton's apology for the study. You many recall that the Tuskegee Study, according the the CDC, involved:

"... 600 black men--399 with syphilis and 201 who did not have the disease. Researchers told the men they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In truth, they did not receive the proper treatment needed to cure their illness"

One of the speakers at the conference was Muhjah Shakir (photo from Creighton University). Her topic was "Tools for Transformation: The Bioethics Community Quilt Project." The quilt illustrated the history of the Tuskegee syphilis study. Congratulations to Sistah Shakir, who will graduate with a Ph.d in 2007. Her dissertation is titled "Women's Narrative Towards Transforming the Legacy: The Syphillis Study and the Bioethics Community Quilt Project."

I'd love to read this dissertation and see the quilt - what a great addition to African American quilt history!