When Trees Testify

How the Word is Passed meets Lab Girl in a cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and the Black botanical expertise, as told through the stories of long-lived trees "Trees are material evidence of the exhaled quintessence of humans past and present. They are truly living witnesses." The histories of long-lived 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 their lives of enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complex Black American narrative but also to a legacy of Black botanical expertise that predates America entirely. In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the way six trees--as well as the cotton shrub--are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped the Americas since the very beginning. To Montgomery's mind, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants. Combining the wisdom of science, history, and her path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer. When Trees Testify exemplifies the importance of the natural world in human stories and human survival​. Ultimately, this unique work extends an invitation to "reflect anew on what testimonies these beings have to offer." Their testimonies are ones we need to hear, honor, and with which we need to reckon.