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Black Diaspora Quilt History Project

Documentation Project

  East Lansing, Michigan, United States    

The BDQHP is funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
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The Black Diaspora Quilt History Project (BDQHP), funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, is an intentional effort towards preserving and making accessible, in the Quilt Index, primary and secondary sources on African American, African, and African Diasporic quilt history drawn from geographically-dispersed public and private collections. The BDQHP is a two-year project running from 2022 through 2024. The scope of the project will entail Quilt Index staff working with a diverse group of stakeholders to create digital humanities resources on African American, African, and African Diaspora quilt history. Resources emerging from this project will make known and honor the cultural legacy of Black quilters throughout the diaspora.

Museum Collections in the BDQHP
African American Quilt Collection at the Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, MI
American Folk Art Museum, African American Quilt Collection
African American Quilts at the International Quilt Museum, including the Robert and Helen Cargo Collection
Colonial Williamsburg, Folk Art Museum Collection
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
Old State House Museum, Little Rock, AR
The Henry Ford including The Susana Allen Hunter Collection

Craft in America is a TV series produced by PBS that features artists and their crafts, including quilts.
The following episodes are of particular interest to the BDQHP:
Gee's Bend Quilters & Joe Cunningham, 
Mississippi Cultural Crossroads quilters,
Hystercine Rankin on what quilting means to her
Quilt artist Faith Ringgold,
Quilter Michael A. Cummings.

Listen to an interview about the Threads of Freedom exhibit at a Juneteenth event in 2025, https://www.kpbs.org/news/arts-culture/2025/06/20/threads-of-freedom-quilt-exhibit-honors-black-history-and-juneteenth

 

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