Boykin, Alabama

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Boykin, Alabama
Pettway Plantation Gees Bend Alabama.jpg
Rear view of the detached kitchen and former plantation home of the Mark Pettway family, called Sandyridge, in Boykin April 1937. The house was demolished a short time later. Photographed by Arthur Rothstein.
Wilcox County Alabama Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Boykin Highlighted 0108680.svg
Location of Boykin in Wilcox County, Alabama.
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Boykin, Alabama
Location within the state of Alabama
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Boykin, Alabama
Boykin, Alabama (the United States)
Coordinates: 32°04′41″N87°16′53″W / 32.07806°N 87.28139°W / 32.07806; -87.28139
Country United States
State Alabama
County Wilcox
Area
[1]
  Total2.81 sq mi (7.27 km2)
  Land2.79 sq mi (7.24 km2)
  Water0.01 sq mi (0.03 km2)
Elevation
128 ft (39 m)
Population
 (2020)
  Total208
  Density74.42/sq mi (28.73/km2)
Time zone UTC-6 (Central (CST))
  Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code
36723
Area code 334
FIPS code 01-08680
GNIS feature ID154993 [2]

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. [2] As of the 2020 census, its population was 208. [3] The Boykin Post Office was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code. [4]

Contents

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. [5]

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note
2010 275
2020 208−24.4%
U.S. Decennial Census [6]
2010 [7] 2020 [8]

2020 census

Boykin CDP, Alabama – Racial and ethnic composition
Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
Race / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2010 [7] Pop 2020 [8] % 2010% 2020
White alone (NH)1154.00%2.40%
Black or African American alone (NH)26219595.27%93.75%
Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)010.00%0.48%
Asian alone (NH)000.00%0.00%
Pacific Islander alone (NH)000.00%0.00%
Some Other Race alone (NH)010.00%0.48%
Mixed Race or Multi-Racial (NH)010.00%0.48%
Hispanic or Latino (any race)250.73%2.40%
Total275208100.00%100.00%

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 Alabama. The plantation started by Joseph Gee passed to his nephews Sterling and Charles Gee upon his death, along with 47 slaves. [5] 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 slavery was abolished many of them continued working for the Pettways as sharecroppers. Many of the black tenants Arthur Rothstein photographed were named Pettway. [9] 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. [5]

Annie Pettway Bendolph carrying water, 1937. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Annie Pettway Lewis Bendolph carrying water in Gee's Bend, Alabama.jpg
Annie Pettway Bendolph carrying water, 1937. Photo by Arthur Rothstein.
Children rehearsing around a maypole for health day exercises, 1939. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Maypole festivity, Alabama (1939).jpg
Children rehearsing around a maypole for health day exercises, 1939. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

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. [9]

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, totalling over 10,000 acres, for $122,000. The agency then sub-divided the land and rented it to 92 families. [10] [11] 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 Marion Post Wolcott to the community to photograph the signs of progressto get the "after" pictures. During the 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. [9]

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. [9]

Ferry service

Old cable ferry between Camden and Gees Bend, 1939. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Marion Post Wolcott - Old cable ferry between Camden and Gees Bend, Alabama.jpg
Old cable ferry between Camden and Gees Bend, 1939. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

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 ferry to the county seat of Camden to try to 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. [12]

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, 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. By 2020, the ferry carries up to 15 cars and 132 passengers, and its diesel propulsion system has been replaced by electric motors and 270 kWh batteries being recharged at the docks. [13]

Gee's Bend Quilts

Jennie Pettway and another girl with the quilter Jorena Pettway, 1937. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Sewing a quilt. Gees Bend, Alabama - April 1937.jpg
Jennie Pettway and another girl with the quilter Jorena Pettway, 1937. Photo by Arthur Rothstein.
Women of Gee's Bend quilting, 2005. Gee's Bend quilting bee.jpg
Women of Gee's Bend quilting, 2005.

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.'" [9]

In 2002, an exhibition of their art work opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, organized by the Tinwood Alliance. 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, [14] 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 stamps bearing images of Gee's Bend quilts sewn between c.1940 and 2001. [15] The quilts and quilters are featured at their website. [16]

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 Ireland Worldwide who have licensed the designs from some of the famous quilts for use in Kathy Ireland products. [17]

Kathy Ireland Worldwide defends their handling of the Gee's Bend quilter's royalties in a statement on their website: [18]

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. [17]

U.S. District Judge Callie Granade of Mobile dismissed the suits and said the parties would pay their own legal costs. [19]

Notable people

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quilts of Gee's Bend</span> Quilting tradition of Gees Bend, Alabama

The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River.

The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Wilcox County, Alabama that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Mingo</span> American quilt maker

Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo is an American quilt maker and member of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. She was an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, which was an alternative economic organization created in 1966 to raise the socio-economic status of African-American communities in Alabama. She was also among the group of citizens who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Pettway</span> African American quilt artist

Loretta Pettway is an American artist and quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Boykin, Alabama. Her quilts are known for their bold and improvisational style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Bendolph</span> American artist

Annie Pettway Lewis Bendolph (1900–1981) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Her work is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to which it was donated by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.

Minder Pettway Coleman was an American artist. She was one of the Gee's Bend quilt-makers, along with her older sister Delia Bennett and her daughter Minnie Sue Coleman.

Loretta Pettway Bennett is an American artist. She is associated with the Freedom Quilting Bee, where her mother, Qunnie Pettway, worked, and with the Gee's Bend quiltmakers. She is a prolific artist and culture-bearer, dedicated to propagating her community's traditions for future generations.

Arlonzia Pettway (1923–2008) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. She began quilting at age 13.

Martha Jane Pettway (1898–2003) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Pettway was born in Gee's Bend, Alabama and lived her entire life there. Her work is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jessie T. Pettway was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Mary Elizabeth Kennedy (1911–1991) is an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters. Her work is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delia Bennett</span> American artist

Delia Bennet (1892–1976) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, and is said to be "the matriarch of perhaps the largest family of quilt producers in Gee's Bend. Her work is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Annie E. Pettway (1904–1972) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and is included in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Magalene Wilson (1898–2001), also known as Magdalene Wilson, was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Nettie Pettway Young (1916–2010) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective and was an assistant manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art.

Lutisha Pettway (1925–2001) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.

Lucy T. Pettway (1921–2004) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Annie Bell Pettway (1930–2003) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, along with her daughter Belinda Pettway.

Pearlie Kennedy Pettway (1920–1982) was an American quilter. She was among the quilters of Gee's Bend. Her works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Pettway</span> American artist

Joanna Pettway was an American quilt artist and daughter of Gees Bend quilter Martha Jane Pettway.

References

  1. "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  2. 1 2 U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Boykin
  3. "Boykin CDP, Alabama". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved April 15, 2022.
  4. "Postmasters by City". Postmaster Finder. United States Postal Service. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 Kyes Stevens (March 9, 2007). "Gee's Bend". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. Auburn University. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
  6. "Decennial Census of Population and Housing by Decades". US Census Bureau.
  7. 1 2 "P2 HISPANIC OR LATINO, AND NOT HISPANIC OR LATINO BY RACE – 2010: DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171) – Boykin CDP, Alabama". United States Census Bureau .
  8. 1 2 "P2 HISPANIC OR LATINO, AND NOT HISPANIC OR LATINO BY RACE – 2020: DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171) – Boykin CDP, Alabama". United States Census Bureau .
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Tenant Farmers: Gee's Bend, Alabama, February and April 1937". Documenting America. Library of Congress. Retrieved July 23, 2011.
  10. Beardsley, John; Arnett, William; Livingston, Jane; Arnett, Paul; Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies John (2002). Gee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Tinwood Books. ISBN   9780971910409.
  11. Hiltzik, Michael (May 8, 2012). The New Deal. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9781439154496.
  12. Pinkston, Randal (September 18, 2006). "Ferry Finally Arrives At Gee's Bend". CBS News. Retrieved June 3, 2007.
  13. "First all-electric ferry in U.S. reaches milestone". WorkBoat. August 6, 2020.
  14. "Fabric of their Lives". Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved April 19, 2010.
  15. ed. William J. Gicker (2006). "Quilts of Gee's Bend 39¢". USA Philatelic (print). 11 (3): 5. Noted for their unexpected color combinations, bold patterns and improvised designs, these quilts were often made out of humble materials such as flour sacks, worn-out denim and flannel work clothes.{{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  16. www.quiltsofgeesbend.com, The Quilts of Gee's Bend. "The Quilts of Gees Bend". www.quiltsofgeesbend.com.
  17. 1 2 Dooley, Tara (June 16, 2007). "2 Gee's Bend quilters say they were cheated". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved June 29, 2007.
  18. Ireland, Kathy. "Kathy Ireland Quilting Solutions". Archived from the original on October 31, 2006. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
  19. Johnson, Bob (August 25, 2008). "Suits brought by rural Alabama quilters resolved". Associated Press. Retrieved August 25, 2008.[ permanent dead link ]