Lucy Mingo, a founding member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, remembers watching her aunt making a “Chestnut Bud” pattern for just a few minutes, then taking a needle and fabric home to sew her first block that same day. This three-branched, blossoming chestnut tree pattern became Mingo’s specialty, and a Chestnut Bud quilt was sold in the first New York auction in 1966. Following that publicity, the Bee was commissioned to quilt seventy-five feet of this pattern for CBS Network founder William and his wife Barbara Paley. Mingo led the group of twelve quilters in the ambitious production. Recalling the early years of the Bee, Mingo describes its impact on women in her community: “There are so many ladies here in Boykin [a town in Gee’s Bend] who really didn’t have the opportunity and didn’t have the skills to go out and get a job. But once they got to the quilting bee, that was something for them.” -- Brittany Luberda, for 2021 Gee's Bend Exhibition