Lucy Mingo facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lucy Mingo
Mingo in 2015
Born	Lucy Marie Young 1931 (age 93–94) Boykin, Alabama, U.S.
Known for	Quilting
Notable work	Chestnut Bud
Movement	Freedom Quilting Bee Gee's Bend Collective

Lucy Marie Mingo (born 1931) is an American quilt maker. She is a member of the famous Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend, Alabama.

She was also an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee. This group was started in 1966 to help African-American communities in Alabama earn more money. Lucy Mingo also marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

In 2015, Mingo received the National Heritage Fellowship. This is the highest award for folk and traditional arts in the United States.

Early Life and Family

Lucy Young was born in 1931 in Rehoboth, Alabama, near Gee's Bend. Her parents were Ethel and Earl Young. People often called her "Toot."

Her father was a sharecropper, which meant he farmed land owned by someone else and paid rent with a share of his crops. He also worked as a longshoreman in Mobile, Alabama. This job kept him away from home for long times. Lucy and her brothers and sisters worked in the fields. They grew corn, peas, potatoes, peanuts, and cotton to help their family.

Lucy went to Boykin elementary school. When she was 13, she went to the Allen Institute in Mobile. After finishing school, she moved back to Boykin. In 1949, at age 17, she married David Mingo. They had ten children, seven of them daughters. Only one of her children, Polly, also makes quilts.

Lucy Mingo is a fourth-generation quilter. Her mother, grandmother, and an older family friend taught her this art. She made her first quilt top when she was fourteen years old.

Lucy Mingo's Career

Lucy Mingo had several jobs before focusing more on quilting.

Working Outside of Quilting

After she got married, Mingo continued to work on farms until 1965. Then, she worked as a cook in a school cafeteria for ten years. After that, she worked in Selma for a year.

Later, she got a job as a homemaking educator for Auburn University. For over 20 years, she taught people how to cook, can food, and freeze it. She retired at age 69 when her mother became sick.

Like many women in Gee's Bend, Mingo made time for quilting after finishing her other jobs.

The Freedom Quilting Bee

Mingo was one of the first members of the Freedom Quilting Bee (FQB). This group started during the Civil Rights Movement. The quilts they made were sold all over the United States. This brought much-needed money to the Gee's Bend community.

Lucy Mingo was known as a great teacher within the Bee. One of her special quilt patterns was called "Chestnut Bud." She taught this pattern to other members of the FQB. Two of Mingo's black-and-white Chestnut Bud quilts were sold to Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland. Mingo and Estelle Witherspoon, the Bee's first manager, led a team of twelve women. They made a Chestnut Bud quilt, a sofa cover, and drapes for CBS chairman William S. Paley and his wife.

The women of the FQB were very involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Many, including Mingo, heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Gee's Bend in 1965. This inspired them to register to vote. Mingo said she "marched in Montgomery and over the Pettus Bridge." She was considered a main spokesperson for Gee's Bend during the civil rights era.

The Bee was created to help women who lost their jobs because they registered to vote. This happened to Mingo. At one point, the Bee was the biggest employer in Rehoboth. The Freedom Quilting Bee closed in 2012 because its members were getting older and their community building was damaged.

The Gee's Bend Collective

Lucy Mingo made this pieced quilt in 1979. It includes a nine-patch center block surrounded by pieced strips.

Lucy Mingo was also a quilter for the Gee's Bend Collective. Both the FQB and the Collective aimed to help the community financially. However, the FQB asked quilters to use standard patterns. The Collective allowed members more artistic freedom in their designs.

The Collective's quilts became famous in 2002. An exhibition of seventy quilts was put together by art collector William Arnett. This show, called "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," traveled to many museums. It went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The New York Times wrote that the quilts were "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced."

Mingo's quilts in the 2002 exhibition were made from "work clothes." In her younger years, she often used old denim and cotton shirts from field work for her quilts. Mingo explained, "You know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields... And so you look at your quilt and you say 'This is some of the old clothes I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they still doing good.'"

The quilters were surprised by the praise they received. Mingo said, "When we see our quilts in museums, we're just amazed. We never thought quilts would get there." She also said that quilts became "history" once they were taken out of closets and put on display.

After the 2002 exhibition, Mingo often taught quiltmaking at events across the United States. The prices for her quilts also went up a lot. Before the Freedom Quilting Bee, her quilts sold for about $5.00. By 2008, a quilt she made in 2004 was valued at "more than $5,000."

In 2006, another exhibition called "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt" included Mingo's work. This show also traveled to many museums. In 2014, Mingo was featured in an episode of the PBS show Craft in America.

Because she is over 90 years old, Mingo rarely makes new quilts now. However, her quilts are still shown in exhibitions. In 2018, Mingo went to New York City for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This show included some of her quilts. In 2022, Mingo and four other Gee's Bend quilters worked with Macy's department stores. Reproductions of their quilts were sold online and in Macy's stores. A part of the sales helped the artists and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.

Exhibitions

Lucy Mingo's quilts have been shown in many museums and galleries across the United States.

Awards and Honors

• Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts (2006)
• National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (2015)