by Barbara Smith

As a child, Kenneth Green remembers sitting with his siblings at the feet of his mother while she stitched together clothing, mending, designing, piece by piece. His mother, Lois Green, was a seamstress, known well in the San Bernardino community. Now, Green, an accomplished Atlanta-based cultural artist/producer, has created Clothes Story, a unique exhibition that celebrates Black women by telling their stories through the fashions they wore.

Born and raised in San Bernardino, Green’s career has spanned entertainment and education and now flourishes as a producer/curator/storyteller and historian with the Clothes Story Exhibition. With a Musical Theatre and Dance degree from United States International University and an M.A. in Dance from CSU Long Beach, Green left San Bernardino and began his professional career as a dancer, performing in various venues and variety shows. He served as casting director for Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida and has taught at UC Irvine and Atlanta’s Spelman College where he served as Director of Cultural Initiatives in the Office of College Relations. One of his proudest moments came when he was selected as producer for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument on the Washington, DC Mall.  For him it was a historic as well as humbling moment, bridging, he says, his own humble beginnings with honoring a hero whose work as a leader in the civil rights movement made his own career arc possible. “This project I have with Clothes Story is a labor of love,” he says, passion infusing his words. “Clothes Story is an exhibition that celebrates women and acknowledges stories that display their resilience, strength, bravery, courage and unapologetic spirit of change.”

The exhibition highlights clothing women wore from 1890 to 1963 with accompanying stories that make for a fascinating journey through time. Women featured in the exhibit are not celebrities or icons, explains Green. “They were women just like my mother or your mother, my auntie or yours. They were people who lived in the communities and took care of their families and did what they could to make a difference during a time when their taking up space was not encouraged.” A favorite story for Green is that of Dorothy Bolden, a domestic worker who worked long hours for little pay for an affluent family in Atlanta. One day she was asked to stay longer and refused. She was arrested, incarcerated for three days and put under psychiatric evaluation because she had the audacity to talk back. Later, Bolden became a civil rights activist and, in 1968, helped start the National Domestic Workers Union of America. “This is just an example of an ordinary woman trying to feed her family yet making an extraordinary difference for generations to come.” Also highlighted in the exhibition is Dr. Eliza Ann Grier, the first African American woman to become a licensed medical practitioner in the state of Georgia. Black history for so long has been filtered through traditional history books that omit stories sewn into the fabric of the human experience. Green has found a way, through fashion and art, to shine a light on these untold stories with richness and depth.

Green began Clothes Story as a kind of passion project several years ago. “A lot of my work as a producer is historical,” he offers, and I’ve always been fascinated with costuming.” Working in the entertainment business offered him opportunities to work with designers and watch them build their products. “I could always relate to what they were doing because of my mom,” he says. “How to take a yard of fabric and make it a yard and a quarter,” he adds with a chuckle. From there, he says, “it just kind of happened. Now I have such a passion for the storytelling and clothes.” He began with 8 pieces, and the exhibit has now grown to include approximately 25 with each having its own backstory about the women who wore them. The clothing designs are mostly replicas created by about 5 designers who, under Green’s creative direction, based their designs on historical data that included images of black women of their particular era. Bustle gowns, tapered skirts, lace gloves, dresses with hoops, elaborate hats and jewelry are all part of the collection.

Currently housed at the Ohr O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi, the exhibit will move later this month to the Southwest Arts Center Gallery in Atlanta.  Green’s fervent hope is to one day bring the exhibit to southern California. He has fond memories of growing up in San Bernardino, where his family were members of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and where they enjoyed fall-off-the-bone favorites at the legendary, now closed, Bobby Ray’s BBQ. His dream to bring the collection to southern California will take some time, however, he explains, as, with many artistic ventures, there is always more need for funding and sponsorship. And moving the large collection is a challenge. Handling the delicate fabrics and protecting the integrity of the collection is foremost.

The exhibition has been received with warmth and often emotion. Green recalls at the very first exhibition speaking with some of the older Black women who had been cleaning the building and watching day by day as the exhibition was going up. “They had been keeping an eye on the development. These women were coming in and saying, ‘My mom used to wear that. She would get dressed up Sunday morning with her hat and gloves just like that.’ I actually had people come through in tears because of the memories and stories these displays bring up. These are the moments I really love about my work.”

The importance of creating Black art to tell stories and celebrate history cannot be overstated, especially in today’s environment that in some circles aims to misrepresent history. Clothes Story with its meticulously created garments, stitched and fashioned together piece by piece, invites us to reflect on fascinating stories previously untold and to honor a legacy of ordinary women who made extraordinary history.