Artwork Details
- Title
- Sit-in
- Artist
- Date
- 2016
- Location
- Dimensions
- 36 1⁄2 × 37 3⁄8 in. (92.7 × 94.9 cm)
- Copyright
- © 2023, Ed Johnetta Miller
- Credit Line
- Gift of Fleur S. Bresler
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- cotton fabric and cotton batt
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Occupation — other — reformer
- African American
- Figure group
- Object Number
- 2023.40.9
Artwork Description
Ed Johnetta Miller
born 1945, Spartanburg, SC
resides Hartford, CT
Student Sit-In
2016
cotton fabric and cotton batting
Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Ed Johnetta Miller experienced the sit-in movement up close. An elder gave her newspaper clippings which she arranged in an improvisational way and then scanned and transferred to this quilt top.
The clippings offer glimpses of the college students who came to be known as the Greensboro Four after they staged a sit-in at the segregated lunch counter of Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Their efforts sparked a larger movement that reached fifty-five cities in thirteen states, all listed on the right side of the quilt, and ultimately contributed to the desegregation of public spaces nationwide.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.9
We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts of Black Women Artists, 2025