This week’s Shelf Awareness Maximum Shelf pick is Beronda L. Montgomery’s WHEN TREES TESTIFY, a stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery that 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.
“Montgomery does not shy away from the ‘both/and’ that the natural world offers in spades. She revels in the beauty of cotton plants while honoring the back-breaking harm the crop played in the lives of her ancestors, even as recently as her parents’ generation… This willingness to not only step into nuance but stay in it moves WHEN TREES TESTIFY into something deeper and more reflective than it first appears. As a plant biologist, Montgomery offers remarkable insights into trees of many varieties; as a complex, multi-layered person, she brings into this science a sense of self rooted in the past, grounded in the present, and looking forward to a vision of an America moving ever further from its violent past. Beautifully crafted and packed with observations sure to appeal to both plant and history enthusiasts, WHEN TREES TESTIFY is itself a testament to the strength, resilience, and wisdom of both the natural world and what might be possible when we bring the lessons of nature and history together in exploring Black botanical legacies in 21st-century America.”–Shelf Awareness
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