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

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.

“[Melinda] Sewak’s inspiring narration, combined with her storytelling prowess and dedication to historical accuracy, make this memoir triumphant. She is pitch-perfect, varying her tone and energy as she shifts between memoir, research, historical content, interviews, and poetry. Her rich tones provide a warm and welcoming experience listeners won’t abandon easily.” — Booklist (Starred Review)

"Narrator Melinda Sewak maintains a clear, entertaining voice as [author Beronda L.] Montgomery explores the secrets of trees...Sewak’s consistent narration is a delight..." — Kirkus

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company