POWERGRAMS

20 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Gee's Bend, Alabama, couldn't be real. That's what fashion designer Patrick Robinson, who knew of the storied Gee's Bend quilters, figured. "I've owned the books of Gee's Bend forever. I never thought it was a real place," says Robinson, founder of the New York City-based Paskho clothing company. "I thought it was this mystical place where people made … I mean, if you look at the art, the craft that people make, it blows your mind. So I didn't believe they existed." Yet, the self-proclaimed "weird one from New York with the Afro" sits at a real aluminum picnic table under a real Southern pine on a stunning blue-sky day, outside a building bustling with real seamstresses – including some quilters – to assemble clothing for Paskho. In the real community of Gee's Bend, Alabama. Robinson is right in one regard. There is no town of Gee's Bend. What many people call Gee's Bend is actually Boykin, a town of just a few hundred. Boykin was officially named in 1949 – against the wishes of most locals who descended from slaves – after long-serving Alabama Congressman and segregationist Frank W. Boykin. But calling Boykin a town doesn't feel quite right. It's more a scattering of modest homes in an area of Wilcox County at a large bend in the Alabama River, directly across from the county seat of Camden. The land, which the river hems in on three sides, is where Joseph Gee established a cotton plantation in 1816 with 18 enslaved Blacks he brought with him from North Carolina, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. In the 200 years since, Gee's Bend residents have known hard times and isolation. Poverty has been a constant. County Road 29 remains the only road in and out of the area, and residents often take a ferry across the Alabama to visit Camden. For four decades, from the civil rights era until 2006, Benders couldn't even ferry across the river because Wilcox County officials ended the service to stymie Black voter registration efforts. That forced residents, many of whom did not own a car, to travel on back roads far out of the way to drive across the river to get to Camden, a trip that took about an hour. Amid two centuries of deprivation, the women of Gee's Bend produced vibrant, stunning works of art. They began quilting in the 19th century to stay warm rather than to reinvent an art form, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, but with their scraps of fabric and clothing they created abstract designs never before expressed on quilts. Eventually, the quilters gained attention and acclaim from the outside world, spurred by the Freedom Quilting Bee cooperative founded in 1966 and two quilt auctions that year in New York City. In 2002, New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, writing about a Whitney Museum exhibition, pronounced the quilts' designs "eye-poppingly gorgeous" and said they were "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced." Expanding operations When Robinson decided to expand Paskho's operations, he chose the very real but very challenging community of Gee's Bend in the heart of Alabama's Black Belt region. "Destiny has a way of bringing you together with things," he says. Through a friend, Robinson met the president and some of the board members of Souls Grown Deep, a nonprofit foundation and community partnership that advocates for Black artists and economic empowerment, racial and social justice and educational advancement in the artists' communities. Souls Grown Deep has worked with Gee's Bend quilters to develop direct to consumer sales, and on its website says it has helped them earn nearly $500,000 "in the past six months." Souls Grown Deep let Robinson know that Gee's Bend is indeed real, and that the quilters' renown hasn't translated into economic prosperity for the community. The median household income in Boykin in 2019 was $12,292, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Souls Grown Deep invested $600,000 in Paskho in March 2021 to establish the Gee's Bend sewing pod. The Alabama Power Foundation also invested in Paskho this past year to help with job creation in Gee's Bend. "They were probably the only people who actually trusted me from the beginning, who actually believed," Robinson says of Alabama Power's philanthropic arm. The foundation's investment allowed Paskho to buy the raw materials the sewing pod needs to make products for the next year. When Paskho sells clothing made in Gee's Bend, "we make a profit and we're able to reinvest in this community," Robinson says. Hallie Bradley, manager of Strategic Initiatives for Alabama Power's Charitable Giving department, says Paskho's Gee's Bend project aligns well with the foundation's commitment to address social injustice and its mission to elevate Alabama. "Providing access to opportunity – good-paying jobs where there hadn't been any – is part of what it takes to unravel systemic inequality," Bradley says. "We are especially pleased our investment is helping Paskho provide jobs and reinvest in a community that is a cultural mecca in Alabama, but for so long has needed economic empowerment." Gaining trust Before Paskho began working to set up the Gee's Bend sewing pod, Robinson found another monumental challenge beyond raising money. Sewing, reaping Paskho uses grant to open plant in rural Alabama Mary Margaret Pettway sews for Paskho.

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