About

Black Women Stitch is the sewing group where Black Lives Matter. We center Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. 

Founded in July 2018 by Lisa Woolfork, the project grew from the wake of her trauma as an Black Lives Matter-Charlottesville organizer in the summer of 2017. She was locked in the church across the street during the white supremacist torch march and attack on August 11, 2017. The next day, she was at the deadly intersection of the car attack on August 12, 2017. 

Of the many losses during that devastating summer, losing one’s sewing community might seem inconsequential to many. However, the bitter, abrupt rejection she faced from white sewists and quilters that she had “known” for nearly two decades was instructive. It proved that those individuals were as racist as she’d initially suspected they were. But more significantly, it revealed that Black women benefit deeply from having spaces where we can convene and connect as our whole selves. She wanted to build something she needed. And Black Women Stitch has been just that for me and many other Black women.