Virtual: When Trees Testify: Reclaiming America’s Black Botanical Legacy with Beronda Montgomery

REGISTER HERE. Join us for a riveting conversation with award-winning biologist Beronda Montgomery as we discuss her book, When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy. The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely. In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees, as well as the cotton shrub, are intertwined with Black history and c

All Ages