When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy

Beronda L. Montgomery

This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees. 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 culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants. Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.

Author Interview With Beronda L. Montgomery

What inspired you to write this book?
I was first inspired to explore the relationship between trees and African American history after encountering a more than 400-year old oak tree while visiting the site of a former plantation near Charleston, SC and realizing that the tree would have been alive and standing when ancestral African Americans had been enslaved there.

Your book touched upon hundreds of years of history. What time period do you feel like you learned the most from?
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly; however knowledge that I gained about the early 1900s in my research on Blackdom, NM in the chapter on apple trees was very new to me. Also, on a personal level, looking into the massacre in Elaine, AR in 1919 was very moving because of the connection to my maternal grandfather and family history.

I have never thought about the various trees and the symbolism they have with Black history. Was there a particular tree you encountered that has stuck with you the most?
In terms of visiting trees, the Angel Tree outside of Charleston has been deeply impactful due to its massive size, the population of resurrection ferns that it hosts, and the fascinating history of the tree, including its link to Civil Rights activist Septima Poinsette Clark.

What was your research process like?
The process was varied in that for same chapters, including Oak, Willow, and Apple, I made a decision to travel. I also spent significant time doing traditional research of reading; yet, this project also took me into archives and deep into genealogical records for my own family connections.

What do you hope readers take away from this book?
I hope that readers may learn something new about African American history, learn about new Black botanical experts and expertise, but also walk away with increase curiosity about trees in general, including those that they share space with.

Trees and Black Americans are entwined throughout the book. What was the most surprising story you discovered that brought together the two topics?
The most surprising was the connection with willows and family history in a massive massacre in Arkansas in 1919.

There are many types of trees, but in your book you explored seven along with cotton. How did you choose the tree species to focus on? Was there one that surprised you?
I started with trees that many might see as associated with Black history - oaks and poplar. Others such as willow, pecan and the cotton shrub were added due to connections to family history that at the same time were connected to the larger history of African Americans in the US.

How do you hope When Trees Testify influences conversations about race and the role of Black botanical history?
I hope that it will inspire individuals to embrace a dual history of Black Americans and botanical history in the US. Many are aware of the trauma associated with chattel slavery, even as many are not aware of the depth of this trauma. Fewer are aware of the depth of agricultural expertise that enslaved Africans contributed to the success of agriculture in the US. I hope that When Trees Testify offers the opportunity to being to understand that Black botanical legacy and to celebrate it.

Thank you so much Beronda for allowing me to ask you questions about your book. If you haven't already, grab a copy of When Trees Testify. You won't regret it!

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When Trees Testify

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