Faith Ringgold tells the often bittersweet history of daily life in Black America from a personal and feminist perspective, combining traditions of storytelling and quilt making in her painted “story quilts.” In Church Picnic Story Quilt, quilting represents an intergenerational activity shared by Ringgold’s mother and grandmother, reflecting their strong familial bonds. This piece was commissioned for the High Museum of Art, with its story set in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park in 1909, a year of unprecedented growth in the city and, in the artist’s mind, a time of optimism and renewed community for African Americans in the South.