Estelle Abrams Witherspoon (January 20, 1916 – December 24, 1998) was an American artist and civil rights activist. She was a founding member and longtime manager 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 ...

, and 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 group, alongside her mother, Willie "Ma Willie" Abrams. She participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, alongside Lucy Mingo. She was arrested in 1971 for participating in an un-permitted march for school desegregation.

References

Gee's Bend quilters 1916 births 1998 deaths 20th-century textile artists 20th-century women textile artists 20th-century American artists 20th-century American women artists 20th-century African-American artists {{US-artist-stub