English professor at Alcorn State honors Mississippi history, including Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer, with her quilts ...Middle East

J. Janice Coleman is an English professor at Alcorn State University and is known as a seamstress who often incorporates history and colorful designs into her quilts, tote bags and other works.

Her textile art has been featured at multiple locations, including the Mississippi Museum of Art and at the National Folk Life Festival, both in Jackson. She has been honored by the Mississippi Humanities Council and was commissioned to create a work honoring Mississippi Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer by the Mississippi Arts Commission.

Mississippi Today Ideas thought it was appropriate to highlight Coleman and Hamer during March – Women’s History Month.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mississippi Today Ideas – I appreciate you being here. Talk about your, I wanna call it art. I think it is art. Give us the background of how all this, your work, came about? How did you learn to quilt? And talk about what you do now.

J. Janice Coleman – OK. I learned to sew when I was very young. Of course, I don’t have an exact day and time, but I can date it from the time that we were in the house that we were living in before we built a new house. So that was about, I guess I might have been 6 or 7 years old then.

MT Ideas – And, where was that?

Coleman – In Mound Bayou. And  I remember sewing then. Now, I wasn’t making quilts, I wasn’t making dresses. As a matter of fact, I was making purses or pocketbooks.

I would take a piece of fabric and fold in half on the wrong side. One of the major rules of quilting is that you keep the right sides together. OK, see, I’m almost through with this thing. This is going to be a pocketbook in a few seconds. 

So as a child, I would  get old sheets or old items, old items of clothing and just cut some pieces, blocks or whatever.

Mt Ideas – And, y’all were a farm family? 

Coleman – We were a farm family, yes. 

MT Ideas – So your mother was the person who taught you?

Coleman – I would say yes. She was a seamstress. 

If you look at the works in my exhibit, you will see I still sew according to the same pattern. The first exhibit I had was entitled “Quilts and Other Quadrilaterals.” Everything here is a quadrilateral, whether it’s a quilt or a cotton sack, or a tote bag or whatever. So I never strayed from my basic pattern, but within this basic pattern I can put triangles, circles, oblongs, whatever, but I stick with the basic pattern, the square or the rectangle. A quadrilateral. That’s my pattern. 

MT Ideas – So many of your projects have a historical perspective. How did you come up with wanting to be historical in your work and your art? 

Coleman – Well, it developed over time, and I think it developed before I even had an awareness of it. Because even the sacks are based on family history. I grew up in a farm family. We lived on the farm.

I’ve picked cotton, chopped cotton, picked cucumbers, purple hull peas. I’ve done all of that stuff. May I show my cotton sack? 

MT Ideas – Yes, ma’am. 

Coleman – On the farm, the cotton sack was the only textile that I could recreate. I could not recreate a tractor. I could not recreate a cucumber basket. I could not recreate a plow or any of those things, but I could recreate this cotton sack because it’s fabric. And so when I was at Mississippi State last year, I took my exhibit titled “The Cotton Sack Reimagined, Repurposed, Revolutionized,” and any cotton sack that’s got quilt panels all over it is revolutionized, is repurposed, is reimagined. I was trying to redo this, you know, this drab cotton sack.

This is a very functional thing, but my cotton sacks are not, well, they might be functional. They might be. We might say they are. They represent decor. They do not go to the cotton fields. They go to conferences. They go to colleges. They go to exhibits. They go to museums. That’s where my cotton sacks go.

MT Ideas – When I was a small boy growing up in rural Jones County, my mother and her sisters would get together on our porch and quilt. But there would be several of them doing it. But you do your sewing by yourself, right?

Coleman –  I do. So you all had the quilting bee. That’s what they were called, the quilting bee. When the women would get together and sew. Right? But  I’ve never sewed with anyone. Not that I would be opposed to it. I just haven’t.

MT Ideas – You kind of combine your English professor background into your work, into your art, which I think is unique and is fascinating. How did that come about? Did you just have an epiphany one day?

Coleman – Well, if you’ve spent as much time sewing as I have, then you may as well share it with the students and it needs to become a part of your academic life. 

MT Ideas – Have any of your students been inspired by your work?

Colman – They have seen the sack here many times. I have required them at times to make poster board quilts, and they can do some artistic things. I asked them to make poster board quilts as a way of learning more about authors, particularly African American authors.

So I would tell them to study 20 Black authors and put those authors on a poster board quilt. Some of them have done some amazing work, and I am just pleased that some of them allow me to keep their work.

MT Ideas – Now one of your pieces, one of your works that is just so incredible is your Fannie Lou Hamer quilt. I thought it’d be appropriate to talk about that during March, which is Women’s History Month.

Coleman – The quilt is 6 feet wide and 8 feet long. 

MT Ideas –  it is very inspiring, and I think she must have inspired you. 

Coleman – Yes, she did. But the quilt, I didn’t intend for it to be that long. I think Fannie Lou Hamer was 5 feet, 4 inches tall. And on the quilt I wanted her to be 5 feet, 4 inches tall. Life size. Right? But the the quilt got longer when I had to put the writing on the quilt, what she’s saying at the top of the quilt.

And then I had to have a border, so it just got longer than I intended for it to be, but Mrs. Hamer just had a way of doing that.

MT Ideas – Now she was a Civil Rights icon and did so much in terms of helping to enfranchise people to vote in Mississippi and throughout the South. Did you depict all that in your quilt?                                                                                                                                                    

Coleman – Yes, I had gotten a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission to make that quilt. I got the grant in, maybe it was July or August of 2023.

But I already knew that I was going to dress her in red, white and blue, in flag print, because she really was a patriotic American. But she said, you know, you have to make the work. You have to work to make the dream come true.

And she worked. She gave it all that she had and then some, so I knew that I wanted to show her in red, white and blue. And if you get very close to the quilt and you look at the body part anyway, and some other parts of it, you will see in that fabric the words to “America, the Beautiful.”

MT Ideas – What was  the famous quote she had at the 1964 Democratic Convention, the “I’m sick and tired” quote?” 

Coleman – I think she said that before 1964. The one on the quilt is from 1964 where she says, “I question America. Is this America?” And a woman who saw that at the fall Folk Festival in Jackson said, I think we are still questioning America.

MT Ideas — And so what else is on the quilt?

Coleman – She suffered so much physical abuse. So I was thinking, I was wondering if I were going to try to show some of that abuse. Like I had this thought for a moment of showing one leg longer than the other, but then I decided I don’t want her all broken up like this on this quilt. Right? And so if you look over her left eye, you would see just a little red under the lid.

There’s nothing on the other eye, just the left eye. And I just let that stand for all the abuse that her body has suffered.

MT Ideas – Well, it’s breathtaking, and you should be proud of it.

Coleman – But no woman wants to be shown all beaten and battered, though. Right? 

As you engage with the art, the art engages with you. When it’s talking to you, you have to listen or you’ll never be able to finish anything. I’m serious about that.

MT Ideas – So what are you working on now?

Coleman – I’m not sewing now. I’m in the middle of the school year. I don’t sew much during the school year because it’s too distracting. I usually sew when school is out.

I was on the Fannie Lou Hamer project for a year, but it was slow going until school was out. And I got behind on the project because of the Mississippi Arts Commission that wanted it completed about May 15th. So the time that I had to work on the quilt ran along the months of the school year.

So after May 15th or when school was out, I was working on that quilt about, I would say sometimes about 16 hours a day.

MT Ideas – So, do you work in your home? Is there a room, a special room that you work in? 

Coleman – I work at my dining room table. But I think if you were to walk in my house, you would know that a person who sews lives there. 

And you would know that a person who reads a lot of books lives there.

MT Ideas – Well, you say you’re not working on anything right now. Do you have a vision for what you’re going work on next?

Coleman – I really want to put Myrlie Evers on a quilt. And not so much as a Civil Rights worker, but as a singer at Carnegie Hall. I interviewed her a few years ago when she was about to turn 80, you know, she’s 90, 93 now, I believe. And she was talking about how pleased she was that she finally got to sing at Carnegie Hall. 

MT Ideas – Uh, real quick, the Fannie Lou Hamer quilt, has any of her family seen it?

Coleman –  No, and, believe it or not, she hasn’t even been to the Delta. 

MT Ideas – She, the quilt? 

Coleman – Yeah. She hasn’t been to the Delta yet. She needs to get up there. She’s been getting around. But we do need to go to the Delta sometime soon.

MT Ideas – I appreciate your time. I’ve learned a lot more today about sewing. It’s good to know about it, but I never could do it myself. 

Coleman – Have you tried?

MT Ideas – No, ma’am. So some things I just know it’s better not to try. 

Coleman – OK. I know that too.

Hence then, the article about english professor at alcorn state honors mississippi history including civil rights icon fannie lou hamer with her quilts was published today ( Tuesday 31/03/2026 - 11:19 PM ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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