Events › Conquer the Soil: Conversation with Horticulturist Abra Lee

About the author

Abra Lee is an American public horticulturalist, historian and writer, who researches Black garden history and raises awareness of the subject through social media. She is Oakland Cemetery’s first black Horticulture Director. Her book, Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country's Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers is due out in 2025.

About the book

Conquer the Soil profiles 45 hidden figures of horticulture—the Black men and women whose accomplished careers in the plant world are little known or untold. Among them are Wormley Hughes, an enslaved African-American who was head gardener at Monticello and dug Jefferson’s grave; Annie Vann Reid, an ex-teacher turned entrepreneur in South Carolina who owned a five-acre greenhouse and nursery in the 1940s that sold millions of plants and seeds; and David August Williston, a graduate of Cornell University and the first African-American landscape architect, a student of Liberty Hyde Bailey, and the designer of the Tuskegee University campus. The lively text is enriched by illustrations of each individual, making this a beautiful package. In Conquer the Soil, Abra Lee--a rising star in the plant world--gives these women and men the spotlight they deserve and enriches our collective understanding of the history of horticulture.