Learn more about NYBG’s anniversary at nybg.org/125
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 1, 2022
NYBG’s 2022 Black History Month
Celebration Honors Barrier-Breaking Pioneers
in Environmental Science, Agricultural Education, and the Arts
Tuesday, February 1 through Monday, February 28, 2022
Bronx, NY—This year, the annual celebration of Black History Month at The New York Botanical
Garden (NYBG) honors barrier-breaking pioneers in environmental science and agricultural education
and showcases current activists and advocates who are creating communities that foster
representation, identity, and diversity in the arts and sciences. Online offerings explore the botanical
legacy of the African Diaspora and the influential contributions of Black Americans to contemporary
society. From programs that include inspiring performances and conversations to fascinating
workshops, lectures, and readings, visitors can learn online and at NYBG about the profound ways in
which plants and gardening are connected to community and culture.
Online offerings are available at https://www.nybg.org/event/black-history-month-at-home/
Programs at NYBG are noted below.
NYBG’s 2022 Black History Month celebration features:
Welcome Message from New York City Councilmember Kevin Riley, Council District 12,
Northeast Bronx
Profiles in Resilience
Hear from Black pioneers in horticulture, gardening, and urban farming whose work and
advocacy are making significant impacts in their communities.
o An Urban Farmer Reconnects with Her Roots: Kadeesha Williams
Video debuts February 7
Listen to former NYBG Community Horticulturist/Urban Agriculturist Kadeesha Williams
discuss turning her dream of honoring her heritage and family identity in urban farming
into a reality by founding the Iridescent Earth Collective.
o Plants as Liberation
Series debuts February 11
In this wide-ranging series of interviews, featuring herbalists and house plant enthusiasts
to farmers and gardeners, hear from Black people in the plant world and learn how they
are using plants as a powerful expression of liberation and freedom.
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o Honoring a Community Gardening Icon: Karen Washington
Learn more about NYBG Trustee Karen Washington, longtime Bronx farmer, community
activist, and advocate for food justice, and her transformative work in urban farming for
more than 30 years.
Food for Thought
Enjoy a series of programs that examine the relationship of food to culture and identity,
especially when languages or cultural traditions have been prohibited and erased.
o The Food Dialogues
This webinar series kicked off NYBG’s Foodways Initiative in the spring of 2021. It brought
together prominent authors, chefs, and historians for important conversations that re-
examined our notions of culture and identity through food. The moderator was Dr. Jessica
B. Harris, America’s leading expert on the food traditions of the African Diaspora. The
three-part series premiered with Carla Hall and Tonya Hopkins, continued with Michael
Twitty and JJ Johnson, and concluded with Von Diaz and Maricel Presilla.
o Afro-Indigenous Histories of Food and Gardening: Garifuna Plant Knowledge, Past
and Present
Exiled from their Caribbean homeland of Saint Vincent in the late 18th century, Garifuna
Indigenous communities settled around the world. This video features Bronx community
organizer and leading Garifuna culinary expert Isha Sumner and noted scholars of Afro-
Caribbean culture Julie Chun Kim of Fordham University and Christina Welch of University
of Winchester, UK. Together, they explore and personalize Garifuna food, knowledge, and
uses of plants as defining elements of their culture and identity.
o Cookbook Review: Garifuna & Gullah Geechee Recipes
Post debuts by February 7
Staff from NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library review dishes from the cookbooks Bress
‘N’Nyam and Gran Cocina Latina, both of which can be found in the Mertz Library. The
Gullah Geechee people are descendants of enslaved Africans who worked on plantations
in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The Garifuna people are descendants of
the Afro-Indigenous people of St. Vincent who were exiled to countries throughout Central
America. There is also Garifuna presence here in the Bronx.
o In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Food Legacy in the Atlantic World
Much of the groundbreaking research by Professor Judith Carney of the University of
California, Los Angeles, focuses on African contributions to New World agriculture and
ecology. In this video of her 2021 online lecture, she shows how enslaved people
established familiar foods from Africa, such as rice, okra, yams, black-eyed peas, and millet,
as staples in their subsistence plots, which Carney calls the “botanical gardens of the
dispossessed.”
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Performance as Expression
Watch innovative performances by contemporary Black artists in genres that celebrate art and
nature as powerful sources of creative inspiration.
o Dr. Carolyn Finney’s The N-Word: Nature, Revisited Rebroadcast & Conversation
Video debuts February 15
In her performance The N Word: Nature, Revisited, writer and activist Dr. Carolyn Finney
speaks about her relationship with nature and the history of Black environmentalism
through the art of storytelling. Join us to view part of the performance and hear Dr.
Finney’s meditations on this personal project in a conversation with Arvolyn Hill, Manager
of NYBG’s Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
o Garden Sets
Blog post debuts February 7
Judith Insell and the JOTB Collective perform free jazz on the picturesque veranda of the
Lillian and Amy Goldman Stone Mill in a video recorded in October 2020. In an
accompanying blog post, viewers can learn more about how the improvisational, radical
harmonic concepts of avant-garde jazz allow her to explore her relationship with nature, art,
and music.
Kids Corner
Gather the kids for storytelling and activity time to discover the cultural influences of the
African Diaspora and reinforce the importance of green space and caring for the natural world.
o Storytime at the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden
Weekdays; 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Self-guided
Saturdays & Sundays; 1:30 p.m. at Swamp Oak Story Spot
Read Where’s Rodney by Carmen Bogan (author) and Floyd Cooper (illustrator), a fictional
story about a young urban Black boy’s transformative day communing with nature during a
class field trip to a national park.
o Rooted in Plants
New video debuts weekly, beginning Feb. 7
NYBG’s Teen Explainers reveal the legacy of the African Diaspora in the plant world.
Videos feature West African Indigo dyeing; enslaved African Edmond Albius’ discovery of
the best way to pollinate the vanilla orchid; and enslaved African Caesar’s use of Plantain
to make a poison antidote that earned his freedom. All videos include specimens from
NYBG’s William and Lynda Steere Herbarium.
Botanical Legacies
Learn about the contributions of Black scientists to our understanding of the plant world, the
rich legacy of plants and knowledge about their uses that enslaved Africans brought to
America, and other plant stories.
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o Focus on Black Botanists
This ongoing series of posts will highlight under-recognized Black scientists whose
historically significant research and discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries contributed
to our collective knowledge and understanding of the plant world.
Marie Clark Taylor – Botanist and Educator:
Find out how to grow cosmos and the other colorful garden annuals that Dr. Taylor, the
first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. in science from Fordham University, studied to
understand the impact of light on plant development.
Thomas Gaither – Activist and Biologist:
Behind each collection is the life of the collector, often lost to history. We’re excited to
celebrate the contributions of Dr. Gaither, both of his fungal collections, and to
advancements in the fight for civil rights.
Lafayette Frederick – Fungal Systematist:
See a type specimen of fungal species described by Dr. Lafayette Frederick, a
mycologist who followed in George Washington Carver’s footsteps to understand and
document all manner of plant pathogens.
Thelma Perry – Mycologist and Teacher:
Post debuts by February 14
Discover one of the “hidden figures” of groundbreaking fungal research at the USDA
Forest Service.
Dr. James Still – “Doctor of the Pines”:
Post debuts by February 14
A brief account of the life and legacy of a 19th-century herbalist.
o Transatlantic Plant Journeys
With illustrative images of plant specimens from NYBG’s Steere Herbarium, two posts tell
the stories of how enslaved Africans brought okra and cowpeas to the Western
Hemisphere.
Okra’s Journey to the United States
Cowpeas and the African Diaspora: What Can Natural History Collections Add? Post
debuts by February 21
o Medicine, Knowledge, and Power in the Atlantic Slave Trade
Even as they were brutally forced from their homelands, enslaved Africans brought
valuable medical and botanical knowledge with them to the Americas. In this video of her
2021 online lecture, Yale University Professor Carolyn Roberts highlights how African
plant expertise was incorporated into 18th-century science and used to sustain the largest
forced oceanic migration in human history.
o Botanical Tour of Harlem
The New York City neighborhood of Harlem is a center for Black culture in America. Take
a virtual tour through Harlem and learn about some of the plant specimens in NYBG’s
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Steere Herbarium that were collected from the neighborhood, from city sidewalks to
northern Central Park.
Community through Story
Peruse titles by Black authors on-site in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library and participate in online
discussions with the NYBG Beyond Books Club and Bronx Bound Books, a bookstore on
wheels.
o Mertz Library Book Display
Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Explore titles by Black authors in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s collection.
o Read with Bronx Bound Books
This month, NYBG Beyond Books Club
on Facebook is thrilled to team up with Bronx
Bound Books. Recently featured in Curbed and Time Out New York and on Good Morning
America, Bronx native LaTanya DeVaughn has launched this initiative to bring literature to
every corner of the Bronx using a bookstore on wheels. For this monthlong “takeover,”
LaTanya will feature a few personal favorites.
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The New York Botanical Garden is located at 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, New York 10458. For
more information, visit nybg.org
The New York Botanical Garden is located on property owned in full by the City of New York, and its
operation is made possible in part by public funds provided through the New York City Department of
Cultural Affairs. A portion of the Garden’s general operating funds is provided by The New York City
Council and The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. The Bronx
Borough President and Bronx elected representatives in the City Council and State Legislature provide
leadership funding.
Media Contacts: Stevenson Swanson at sswanson@nybg.org;
Nick Leshi at nleshi@nybg.org
