Revisiting African American Women and Gardening

African American Women & Gardening!

I published ‘A Garden So Brilliant with Colors, So Original in Its Design’: Rural African American Women, Gardening, Progressive Reform, and the Foundation of an African American Environmental Perspective back in 2003. Environmental History recently virtually republished the article in a collection titled Race, Justice, and Civil Rights.

What I loved the most about writing an environmental history of African American women and gardening was the arduous love I put into the research at places like the North Carolina State Archives and the Rockefeller Archives. More importantly, I walked across a threshold with women with dirt under their nails moving with them from invisible to visible in the historical record.

I was and still am honored by and proud of my connection to these gardeners.