Black Queens | Crystal Ward, 2018

Materials: Cotton, Batiks
Techniques: Raw-edge appliqué, hand embroidered, machine quilted
Finished Size: 43" x 46"

The conversation about inequity, violence, and marginalization often omits the group of people most disenfranchised in the world - black women. Yet despite the literal disrespect and omission from the conversation, #blackgirlmagic is at the forefront and stronger than ever. Black women are trend setters, nurturers, healers, activists, and often the brilliance behind political, religious, and social movements. Black women make up the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in America, are being elected into political office, and now more than ever are unapologetically letting their voice, experience, and stories be told. This mini quilt titled, “Black Queens” shows a stunning black with a crown placed atop her head to signify both her importance and her regality. This depiction of a Black Queen stands in contrast to the famous Malcolm X quote as juxtaposition that shows the strength and resilience we all have. It is time for black women to get their due respect, recognition, and equality.

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To close, I wanted to share a short excerpt from a pivotal reading from Professor Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett, titled “Getting Off of Black Women’s Backs. Love Her or Leave Her Alone.” This passage speaks so poignantly to the contributions of black women and their astounding grace, intelligence, humility, and beauty. ​

"Black women are not universally angry, because no group of human beings is universally angry. Black women can be kind, warm, sensitive, gentle, thoughtful, and forgiving. Every day, millions of women of African descent around the world prove the accuracy of this statement, prove it quietly, with unseen gestures and whispered words as they go about the business of leading challenging, unobtrusive, but meaningful lives that rarely attract the glare of media spotlights or the sharp tongues of patronizing, preening, pundits. And yet, without the radical kindness of Black women on every continent of this planet, even more Black children would suffer before they had the chance to grow, even more of the elderly of all races would die alone and without care, even more Black women and, yes, more Black men—and more people of all races whose lives have been touched by the kinds of Black women you never see on television or read about in academic articles—would exist with less love, grace, and meaning in their lives. We speak here of radical kindness because Black women have every social, political, cultural, and historical reason to be relentlessly and perpetually unkind, in the interest of their own success and survival, to abandon kindness as an unwieldy and unrewarding burden that they cannot afford to carry. But carry it they do and distribute it with great, and greatly ignored, generosity.”