After a rigorous selection process, The Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy is excited to announce, it has selected Brown Studio Architecture of Montgomery to revitalize the historic building of the Freedom Quilting Bee (The Bee), and to develop a master site plan for its 14+ surrounding acres. The Bee was a women’s quilting cooperative in rural Alabama begun in 1966. Just before leading the marches from Selma to Montgomery, AL, in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. passed through Alberta and the hamlet of Gee’s Bend and encouraged its 900 residents to register to vote. It was Dr. King’s visit and message which the founding women derived the name “Freedom Quilting Bee”, through the vote Black people would gain ‘freedom’.