Blue, yellow, green, and pink translucent glass bottles upside-down on a metal tree branch structure against a blue sky background with green bushes along the bottom view.

Black History Month

February 1 to 28, 2026

Online & At the Garden

Black History Month at NYBG spotlights the far-reaching botanical legacy of the African Diaspora—and the myriad ways American history is defined by Black history. Get to know storied pioneers in environmental science and agriculture, and make household names of today’s activists building communities around representation, identity, and diversity. See how the Black experience—from gardening and science to arts and culture—has shaped our relationship with plants.

Above: NYBG planted its first African American Garden in 2022. As a protector of the garden, and to celebrate ancestors, a traditional African American bottle tree was among its special features.

At the Garden

A black and white illustration of a person in a white suit, holding a flower on a vine

Spotlight on the Vanilla Orchid at The Orchid Show Sensory Stations

Do you know the name Edmond Albius?

The vanilla industry as we know it can be traced to a 12-year-old Black boy named Edmond Albius who was enslaved on a plantation on Reunion Island, located in the Indian Ocean. In 1841, Albius pioneered a technique for hand-pollination of the vanilla orchid which led to a cultivation boom and the birth of the commercial industry for vanilla products. Learn more about the vanilla orchid at the Sensory Stations on select weekend dates. 

For more of Albius’ story, read Black Botany, The Nature of the Black Experience: The Vanilla Plant and Edmond, available online through the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Plant & Research Guides.

A brown pine cone covered in bird seed

Rooted in Plants

Through March 1, 2026
Everett Children’s Adventure Garden

Make your own pinecone birdfeeder while learning about the Black Birder movement, and its co-creator, Corina Newsome.

Learn More

Plants as Liberation

This wide-ranging series of interviews, begun in February 2022, continues as Arvolyn Hill, Associate Director of the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, speaks with Black people in the plant world. From herbalists and houseplant enthusiasts to farmers and gardeners, listen and learn how they are using plants as a powerful expression of liberation and freedom.

  • Plants as Liberation: Hilton Carter

  • Plants as Liberation: D.K. Kinard

Plant Discoveries

Rooted in Plants: The Story of Vanilla

Watch NYBG’s Teen Explainers discuss Edmond Albius’s history-changing discovery of the Vanilla Orchid while touring vanilla plants in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and pressed specimens from the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium.

Lectures and Symposia

Enjoy programs from 2024 that examine culture and identity, including the vital role of food traditions—especially when cultural heritage or languages have been prohibited and erased.

  • The Healing of Gardens: A Conversation About Soil

  • Views from the Diaspora: A Panel Discussion

African American Gardens

Supported by generous funding from the Mellon Foundation, the New York Botanical Garden planted three African American Gardens between 2022 and 2024, each telling different stories of the African American experience through plants. All three gardens were curated by NYBG Trustee Dr. Jessica B. Harris, America’s leading scholar on the food and foodways of the African Diaspora.

Botanical Legacies

Learn about the contributions of Black scientists and Garden staff to our understanding of the plant world, the rich legacy of plants and knowledge about their uses that enslaved Africans brought to America, and other plant stories.

Location Online & At the Garden

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