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Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo (born 1931) is an American Quilting and member of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. She was an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, which was an alternative economic organization created in 1966 to raise the socio-economic status of African-American communities in Alabama. She was also among the group of citizens who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Mingo is a recipient of a 2015 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States.
Mingo went to Boykin elementary school, and at age 13 was sent to the Allen Institute in Mobile. After graduation from Allen, she moved back to Boykin and married David Mingo in 1949, at age 17. She and David had ten children, seven of them daughters but only one of her children (Polly) quilts.
She is a fourth-generation quilter, with her mother, grandmother, and older close family friend all inspiring her and teaching her their art. She pieced her first quilt top at the age of fourteen.
Like many women in Gee's Bend, Mingo squeezed in quilting time after completing work at her other jobs. (2025). 9780971910409, Tinwood Books, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. ISBN 9780971910409
The women of the FQB were very aware of and many were active in the civil rights movement. Members of the FQB heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Gee's Bend in 1965 and many of them, including Mingo, were inspired to register to vote as a result. Mingo says she "marched in Montgomery and over the Pettus Bridge, but I wasn't in the one with John Lewis" and she avoided getting arrested because she had children. Mingo was considered "one of Gee's Bend's leading spokespersons during the civil rights era".
The Bee was founded in part to provide employment to women who lost work when they took a stand for civil rights and registered to vote, which happened to Mingo. At one point, the Bee was the largest employer in the town of Rehoboth. (2025). 9780965376648, Tinwood Books, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. . ISBN 9780965376648
The Freedom Quilting Bee's numbers declined in the 1990s due to an aging membership, plus weather damage to their community space. After the death of the last original board member, the Bee officially closed in 2012.
Mingo's contribution to the 2002 exhibition was in the area of "work clothes" turned into quilts. In her early years, Mingo frequently used old denim and cotton shirts worn during field work as material for her quilts. Mingo said about these quilts, "You know, we had hard times. We worked in the fields, we picked cotton, and sometimes we had it and sometimes we didn't. And so you look at your quilt and you say 'This is some of the old clothes I wore in the fields. I wore them out, but they still doing good.' "
The attention and praise the Gee's Bend Collective members received from the art world as the 2002 exhibit toured the country surprised them. Mingo said "When we see our quilts in museums, we're just amazed. We never thought quilts would get there." Mingo also said about the effect of the exhibition: "Yes, they are about history because quilts have been here all the time. But in another way, these quilts just became history because before they were hidden in the closets and on the bed mattresses. When you take them out, they become history. Until quilts made history, people weren't paying attention. Now, everyone wants to see your quilts; they want to know what you're making."
Following the success of the 2002 exhibition, Mingo was often hired as leading quiltmaking instructor at events across the United States. In addition, the prices for her quilts increased dramatically. Before working at the Freedom Quilting Bee, Mingo's quilts would sell for about $5.00. A 2008 quilting identification and price book includes a Mingo quilt made in 2004 valued at "more than $5,000".
In 2006, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tinwood Alliance mounted a second exhibition titled "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt" that included works by Mingo. That exhibition's itinerary included eight museums throughout the United States.
Mingo was one of two Gee's Bend Collective quilt makers featured in a 2014 episode titled "Industry" of the PBS television series Craft in America.
In 2014, it was reported that because she is over 80 years old, Mingo rarely makes new quilts anymore. But her quilts are still included in exhibitions, including the 2017 Outsider Art Fair held in New York City. In May 2018, Mingo traveled to New York City to attend the opening of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled "History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation" that included some of Mingo's quilts, as well as others from the Gee's Bend Collective.
In 2022, Mingo and four other Gee's Bend quilters entered into an arrangement with Macy's department stores to sell reproductions of their quilts online and on-site in Macy's stores. Percentages of the sales supported the artists as well as the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.
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