Friday 29 June 2012

Freedom Garden in Louisiana

Image from the River Road African American Museum
The River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, Louisiana has created a fascinating garden which is has called the Freedom Garden, and which 'reveals the history of Louisiana’s Underground Railroad and shows a variety of vegetation that was cultivated through the use of slave labor. Freedom seekers might have used the edible and medicinal plants displayed in this garden as a mechanism of survival while escaping from the plantations in the region. Some of the plants are indigenous to Africa, some were domesticated on the plantations, and many could be found in the wilderness along the bayous, rivers and swamps.  

Here is a piece in The New York Times featuring the garden and Kathe Hambrick-Jackson, the museum's founder and executive director.  

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