Every other year Brattleboro's Hilltop Montessori Middle School travels to Alabama as part of their studies on the Civil Rights Era and racial identity.
Since their first trip the people of Gee's Bend have welcomed the Vermont students and their teachers into their community.
Middle School Director Paul Dedell wanted to bring some of the members of Gee's Bend up to Vermont to return the kindness and love that has been shared with the school in Alabama.
"It's really important, I think, especially in today's polarized racial atmosphere, that we get to know people, in a way that isn't just on a platitudinal level, or in the news," Dedell said. "These people have great stories to tell."
While the group was in Brattleboro some of the members performed the play, "Gee's Bend," a 2006 play by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder based on the life of Mary Lee Bendolph.
"It's really important, I think, especially in today's polarized racial atmosphere, that we get to know people, in a way that isn't just on a platitudinal level, or in the news. These people have great stories to tell." - Paul Dedell, Hilltop Montessori
"These quilts could tell some stories people will never know," the lead character, Sadie, says in the play. "They don't know the babies that's been born in these quilts. The people who died. The love that's been made. Little pieces of our lives sewn up in those quilts. Little pieces of our history."
Wilder's play has been produced all over the country and a few years ago the Ye Shall Know the Truth Baptist Church started their own production in Gee's Bend.
Dedell says that inspired him to invite members of the group up to Vermont.
"Every two years we've been there. And every two years they open their homes, their hearts, their church, their whole community to us," Dedell says. "And it seemed like, especially with this play, that it was the perfect opportunity to welcome them the way they've welcomed us. Because it is a singular and remarkable group of people to get to know."
China Pettway, one of the Gee's Bend quilters, says the respect and friendship between the Vermont and Alabama communities have been growing ever since the first visit 12 years ago.
"You know, some people you can hug, when they hug, you know it's not real," said Pettway. "But when I hug the people from Vermont, I feel the love, I feel the expression, I feel the need I feel that we are connected, as human beings. That's what God wanted us to do, to love one another."
Women have been quilting in Gee's Bend for at least 150 years.
"You know, some people you can hug, when they hug, you know it's not real. But when I hug the people from Vermont, I feel the love, I feel the expression, I feel the need I feel that we are connected, as human beings." - China Pettway, Gee's Bend quilter
The quilts became more widely known in 2002 and 2003 when they traveled to major museums around the country, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
During the visit to Brattleboro the Quilts of Gee's Bend hung in the Catherine Dianich Gallery on Main Street.
Then show opened to a packed house during Gallery Walk and included a quilting circle in the lobby led by three women of the Gee's Bend community.
Quilts and quilting anchor the Gee's Bend play, but the narrative threads in and out of the major historical events of the civil rights movement.
Scenes reference the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s visit to Gee's Bend and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In between the women of Gee's Bend gossip and quarrel as they sit around a table and quilt.
"Gee's Bend" played to three sold-out shows in Brattleboro.
The busy weekend included both the plays and quilt show, a photo exhibit, an appearance by the playwright at the Brattleboro Literary Festival and showings of the short film, "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," with the filmmaker Vanessa Vadim.
Dedell, the middle school director, says he hopes the visit opens the door for additional cultural exchanges between the two communities.
The Hilltop Montessori School plans to return to Gee's Bend in 2017.
