Bloody Sunday

Sharon Kerry-Harlan, Bloody Sunday, 2020, cotton fabric and cotton batt, 49 38 × 49 14 in. (125.4 × 125.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.8

Artwork Details

Title
Bloody Sunday
Date
2020
Dimensions
49 38 × 49 14 in. (125.4 × 125.1 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Fleur S. Bresler
Mediums
Mediums Description
cotton fabric and cotton batt
Classifications
Subjects
  • Landscape — Alabama — Selma
  • African American
  • Figure group
  • Figure — fragment — face
  • History — United States — Civil Rights Movement
  • Occupation — other — reformer
Object Number
2023.40.8

Artwork Description

Sharon Kerry Harlan
born 1951, Miami, FL; resides Hollywood, FL

Bloody Sunday
2020
Cotton fabric and cotton batting

 
This quilt by Sharon Kerry Harlan connects to the artist’s consciousness of the Southern Freedom Movement as a high school student in Louisiana. Harlan recalls how on March 7, 1965, a group of community organizers, community members, and religious leaders marched to protest the killing of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper. The march was led by John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Reverend Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group of nearly six hundred marchers committed to nonviolence even after they were met with violence from state and local police as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40s.8


We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts of Black Women Artists, 2025

Works by this artist (11 items)

Ralph Gibson, Untitled (Man with Beard, Closed Eyes, Tie), 1975, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1983.63.595, © Ralph Gibson
Untitled (Man with Beard, Closed Eyes, Tie)
Date1975
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Ralph Gibson, Untitled (Table Top with Water Glass and Salt Shaker), 1975, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1983.63.597, © Ralph Gibson
Untitled (Table Top with Water Glass and Salt Shaker)
Date1975
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Ralph Gibson, Untitled (Workshirt Front), 1975, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1983.63.599, © Ralph Gibson
Untitled (Workshirt Front)
Date1975
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Ralph Gibson, Untitled (Man's Face Wearing Hat and Sunglasses), 1975, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1983.63.603, © Ralph Gibson
Untitled (Man’s Face Wearing Hat and Sunglasses)
Date1975
gelatin silver print
Not on view

More Artworks from the Collection

Bently
Dateca. 1975
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Untitled, ca. 1945-1950, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Lewis and Jean Greenblatt, 2002.86.9
Untitled
Dateca. 1945-1950
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Untitled, ca. 1945-1950, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Lewis and Jean Greenblatt, 2002.86.7
Untitled
Dateca. 1945-1950
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Jared French, Margaret French, PaJaMa, Paul Cadmus, PaJaMa (Box A), ca. 1937, gelatin silver prints, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Margaret French, 1999.98.5.16
PaJaMa (Box A)
Dateca. 1937
gelatin silver prints
Not on view