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TVA Quilt Correspondence

September 10, 1976
Quilts and Human Rights
Battle Creek, Michigan, United States
A description of the TVA quilt written by its owner, Maurice Seay. Seay received the quilt as a gift from its makers in 1937.
Maurice F. Seay
____ South Minges Road
Battle Creek, Michigan 49017
September 10, 1976

This quilt was made by members of the Negro Women’s Association of Pickwick Dam Village in northeastern Mississippi and was given in the spring of 1937 to Maurice F. Seay who was at that time Director of the educational program of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In presenting the quilt to Dr. Seay, the president of the Association told the audience two things: the occasion for the gift and the symbolization of the quilt.

For the first time in the history of Mississippi, so far as she knew, the president explained, black people and white people had studied and played together in an integrated educational and recreational program built and supported by public money. TVA had complied with local custom by building a village for white employees on one side of a ridge and an identical village for black employees on the other. But custom had been quietly up-dated when one set of vocational classroom buildings, a library, and recreational facilities were built on top of the ridge. People of all ages from all the families, black and white, had come at all hours of the day and night to participate in this educational program. The gratitude of the Negro women for this lively, integrated program led them to recognize its director with their gift of this specially designed, handmade quilt.

The symbolism of the quilt centers around the hesitant black boy in the center. He is torn between the demanding hand of Uncle Sam on his shoulder telling him to work hard and obey the law and the beguiling guitar in his own hand tempting him to indulge in fun and frivolity. He stands against a background suggesting the African sun, the black of the African homeland, and the green vegetation which God has so generously provided for all people. As the president of the Negro Women’s Association said in closing her presentation, this quilt will remind all of us that the young black man is being forced today to make a most important decision.

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