Addie Pearl Nicholson (born 1931) is an American artist. She is associated with the

Gee's Bend Boykin, also known as Gee's Bend, is an African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The te ...

quilting collective, and she was the secretary of the

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

when it was incorporated in 1966. Since then, she has served as the cook for the Freedom Quilting Bee's daycare center, and as the president of the Bee.Callahan, Nancy. 2014. ''The Freedom Quilting Bee : Folk Art and the Civil Rights Movement''. Alabama Fire Ant Books. p. 46, 171.

Early life

Nicholson was born in

Dallas County Dallas County may refer to: Places in the USA: * Dallas County, Alabama, founded in 1818, the first county in the United States by that name * Dallas County, Arkansas * Dallas County, Iowa * Dallas County, Missouri * Dallas County, Texas, the nin ...

, in an area called Pleasant Hill, near

Selma, Alabama Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About ...

. Although, by and large, New Deal programs, particularly those concerning agriculture, such as the

Agricultural Adjustment Act The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part ...

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Se ...

, and the

Farm Security Administration The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937). The FSA is famous for its small but ...

, benefited white Americans more than black Americans, many families in Gee's Bend and the surrounding areas saw economic improvement during the New Deal era. For instance, Nicholson's family moved to Coy, Alabama when the McDuffie Plantation was broken up by the federal government for unfair sharecropping practices. Her father received 150 acres of arable land from this land seizure. Most black families were skeptical of the government program and moved north to avoid further systemic injustice. Nicholson and her husband, Daniel Nicholson, met when she was 18 years old. They married soon after and moved to Gee's Bend to farm and raise a family. Gee's Bend does not have many new families, and they refer to the Nicholson family as "incomers", though they have lived there most of their lives.

Work

Nicholson first began to make quilts when she was 16 and began making more after she married. Her husband, Daniel, proudly recalls helping her quilt, joking that, "She couldn't beat me sewing." Their quilts, like most, were utilitarian, mostly used to keep their children warm at night and comfortable when sitting in the fields.

References

Quilters 1931 births African-American women artists Living people 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women {{US-artist-stub