Betty Crawford

The eleventh of 16 children, Betty Crawford grew up on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. “I understood what it meant to have little, but I dreamed big,” she said. Her mixed-media sculptures and quilts reflect her family’s history of activism and her hope for a brighter future.

Crawford has long been passionate about mixing history and art. In 1998, she began an artistic project inspired by the 1968 Mule Train Journey, a civil rights demonstration to raise awareness of the poverty crisis in the United States as part of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. Demonstrators in the Mule Train marched from Marks, Mississippi to Birmingham, Alabama alongside mule-drawn wagons, then made additional stops in Atlanta, Georgia, and Arlington, Virginia, before a final demonstration in Washington, D.C. Crawford’s cousin, Bertha Burres, was the secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Mule Train Planning Committee and participated in the journey with her six children, producing handwritten notes about the experience. After connecting with Burres and hearing her stories, Crawford set out to commemorate the event in her art.

Betty Crawford pairs her mixed-media works, such as a 24” handcrafted wreath and large-scale relief sculptures, with black and white photographs from the Poor People’s Campaign. Her work is simultaneously educational, commemorative, and personal. “I come from generations of seamstresses as my mother and grandmothers were quilters. My first memory of seeing this beautiful artistry was on my Big Mama’s bed. When Big Mama would quilt, her hands would move across the fabric with such care and tenderness, much like her kind and tender heart.” Likewise, Crawford’s art reflects her care and depth of feeling in crafting a personal vision of the civil rights movement and its role in her family’s story.