Bloody Sunday

Sharon Kerry-Harlan, Bloody Sunday, 2020, cotton fabric and cotton batt, 49 3⁄8 × 49 1⁄4 in. (125.4 × 125.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.8

Artwork Details

Title
Bloody Sunday
Artist
Date
2020
Location
Dimensions
49 3⁄8 × 49 1⁄4 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
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/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 (3 items)

Sidney Gross, Refugees, pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.105
Refugees
Artist
pencil on paper
Not on view
Sidney Gross, The New City, 1945, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.4
The New City
Artist
Date1945
oil on canvas
Not on view
Sidney Gross, Men and Trees, 1937, pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.104
Men and Trees
Artist
Date1937
pencil on paper
Not on view

More Artworks from the Collection

Browse All Artworks
Joseph Hardin, Untitled (figure at Table, View of Legs), ca. 1978, colored pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.111
Untitled (figure at Table, View of Legs)
Artist
Dateca. 1978
colored pencil on paper
Not on view
William Zorach, (Untitled--Child's Head), 1925, pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift from the collection of the Zorach children, 1976.145.8
(Untitled – Child’s Head)
Artist
Date1925
pencil on paper
Not on view
Michael Clark, Classic Series, 1970, pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Fendrick, 1980.131.3
Classic Series
Artist
Date1970
pencil on paper
Not on view
Image Not Available
Study for the Pushover
Artist
Date1981
pencil on paper
Not on view