Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South

Quiltmaking is one of the most enduring ways of making meaning and encapsulating memories within Black culture. Generations of Southern Black women have cultivated this art form, using  quilts to preserve their history. Their hands have stitched visual records that maintain centuries of knowledge about the region's complexities, yet the makers of these quilts have been historically overlooked.  

Black folklorists and quilt collectors like Roland L. Freeman (1936-2023) documented the lives, processes, and creations of Black quilters across the South. By preserving these stories with care and respect for the artists, collectors like Freeman recognized that race, gender, and class should not define or diminish the makers nor their works.

Drawing from highlights of the collection of the Mississippi Museum of Art, including quilts from Freeman’s personal collection, Of Salt and Spirit celebrates the extraordinary vision and skill of Southern Black women quilters, and the communities they made quilts for. Uniting the works and their makers, the exhibition uses a reparative approach to showcase the untold stories of everyday people whose lives were, and are, as vibrant and varied as the quilts they created.
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Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South is organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art. The exhibition is curated by quilts scholar Dr. Sharbreon Plummer with Lydia Jasper, former Assistant Curator of the Permanent Collection, Mississippi Museum of Art. National support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and Art Dealers Association of America Foundation.

The Memphis iteration is curated by Kristin Pedrozo, Art Bridges Curatorial Fellow, and presented by First Choice Global Sales & Merchandising Group, Cathy Ross, and the Black Art Collective, with major support from Burch, Porter & Johnson LLC; Kroger; Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz; Dr. Linda Tharp; Tanya and Mark Hart; Gloria and Kenneth Boyland; National Civil Rights Museum; and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art staff.

All exhibitions at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art are underwritten by the MBMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by Kay Clark and Maggie and Milton Lovell, with generous annual funding from Anonymous, Gloria and Kenneth Boyland, Holly and Paul T. Combs, Deborah and Bob Craddock, Eleanor and William Halliday, Debi and Galen Havner, Sally Hergenrader, James R. Humphreys, Jay and Kristen Keegan, the Doris S. and Hubert Kiersky Charitable Remainder Trust, Carl and Valerie Person, and Bill Townsend.

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Above, left to right:
‍Emma Russell (1909–2004), Star Quilt, 1978.
Elizabeth T. Scott (1916–2011) and Joyce J. Scott (b. 1948), Monsters, Dragons, and Flies, 1982.
Mabel Williams (dates unknown), Improvisational Strip Quilt, 1968.
Essie Mae Buck (1932–2021), Chickens, 1993.
‍All works from the collection of the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson. Gifts of the Kohler Foundation, Inc., except where noted.