Artwork Details
- Title
- Remembering Brown vs Board of Education
- Artist
- Date
- 2015
- Location
- Dimensions
- 56 3⁄8 × 46 5⁄8 in. (143.2 × 118.4 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Fleur S. Bresler
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- cotton fabric and cotton batting
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Children
- African American
- Occupation — education — student
- History — United States — Black History
- History — United States — Civil Rights Movement
- Occupation — other — reformer
- Object Number
- 2023.40.12
Artwork Description
Ora Clay
born 1945, ????Union Springs, AL
resides Oakland, CA
Remembering Brown vs Board of Education
2015
cotton fabric and cotton batting
Having attended segregated schools in Union Springs, Alabama, Ora Clay asserts that “we have a duty to tell our story.” Clay’s quilt commemorates Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case that ruled racial segregation in public schools and its underlying “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. Composed of so-called courthouse steps blocks, the quilt features the names of the case’s thirteen plaintiffs, along with those of lawyers who represented them.
Two dolls at lower right allude to a test developed by Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark on the effects of segregation. Finding that Black children from segregated schools thought positively of white dolls and negatively of Black dolls—and were thus inclined to think negatively of themselves—the Clarks’ test was an important factor in the court’s landmark decision.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.12
We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts of Black Women Artists, 2025