The positive effects of Estelle Witherspoon and the Freedom Quilting Bee were felt far beyond members’ households. The cooperative was able to establish a daycare center and after school and other youth programs that benefited all the children in their community. The FQB also owned land, a factory building, and equipment, all tangible assets that increased the economic independence of members and their families. Ownership of land was especially important as many families lost the land they were sharecropping due to involvement with the civil rights movement. The FQB further facilitated Black land ownership by selling eight lots of land on their sewing plant plot to families who had been evicted from their homes. 📸 The Freedom Quilting Bee: Folk Art and the Civil Rights Movement by Nancy Callahan (fb)

An economic heroine who never believed that something couldn’t be done, Estelle Witherspoon facilitated and oversaw the Freedom Quilting Bee’s transition from a bespoke operation producing individual, one-of-a-kind quilts to a professional organization with a worker-owned sewing center employing over 100 people. In order to increase profit and grow the cooperative, FQB partnered with a Wall Street investment bank and his wife. With their help, FQB transitioned to producing smaller items that would be produced more quickly and sold to department stores in larger quantities. This led to contracts with Sears and Roebuck and Bloomingdales. These contracts enabled the co-op to become the largest employer in their area of Wilcox County. The FQB’s financial success gave women who previously had no outlet to work outside the home the opportunity to become breadwinners for their families. Members of the FQB could now afford to send their children to school and improve their homes with modern appliances, granting them a level of economic freedom and self-determination that they have never experienced before. 📸 Member of the FQB display their quilts, circa 1966. Courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library Archives (fb)