Artwork Details
- Title
- His Instrument for Justice
- Artist
- Date
- 2012
- Location
- Dimensions
- 35 x 46 in.
- Copyright
- © 2012, Lauren A. Austin
- Credit Line
- Gift of Fleur S. Bresler
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- commercial cotton fabric, hand-dyed cotton by artist, brocade, and cotton-batting
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Object — written matter — newspaper
- Object — other — telephone
- Object — fruit — orange
- Object — art object — photograph
- Still life — other — typewriter
- Object Number
- 2023.40.3
Artwork Description
Lauren Austin
born 1959, Boston, MA
resides Altamonte Springs, FL
His Instrument for Justice
2012
commercial cotton fabric, cotton hand-dyed by artist, brocade, and cotton batting
Laura Austin stitched this quilt to tell the story of Harry T. Moore, who is considered the first martyr of the Civil Rights Movement. Moore was executive secretary of the Florida chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1949, he organized a campaign against the wrongful conviction of four teens—Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin—who were falsely accused of raping a woman named Norma Padgett and assaulting her husband on July 16, 1949.
Three red talhakimt amulets appear on the right side of the quilt, offering protection for Moore and his wife Harriette as they traditionally do for Tuareg-Berber travelers. The typewriter holds the last letter Moore sent to Governor Fuller Warren, on December 2, 1951, demanding justice for the accused. On Christmas Day that year, a bomb went off underneath the Moores’ home, a cottage set in a secluded orange grove, killing the couple. It was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.3, © 2012, Lauren A. Austin
We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts of Black Women Artists, 2025