James Brown, director of education at the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the Frick Environmental Center, and his team started planning a From Slavery to Freedom Garden special event at the start of this year.
Just by chance, he read in an article that September is International Underground Railroad Month. The timing? Just perfect. The conservancy team working on the inaugural Freedom Harvest Celebration had looked at the calendar and selected this Saturday for it all to happen.
The free family-friendly celebration is part of the Allegheny Regional Asset District’s RAD Days, an annual celebration offering free admission to various cultural and recreational facilities in the Pittsburgh area. The inaugural event “provides a unique opportunity to honor history, culture and the harvest season in the city’s largest regional park,” according to a conservancy news release.
From 1 to 4 p.m. guests can tour the garden and participate in interactive garden tours, history hikes, face painting, lawn games and crafts. Community organizations will offer table activities and enrichment for all ages, the release stated. Live musical entertainment will add to the event, and food and beverages from local vendors will be available. No registration is required, and Brown said it is a “light rain or shine” event. The weather forecast has improved throughout the week, thankfully, he added.
Based at the Frick Environmental Center, the garden showcases plants and vegetables that freedom seekers used for nourishment and medicine on their perilous journey north to freedom.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade transported more than 440,000 people from Africa to North America. The enslaved were completely unfamiliar with their new environment in the United States yet found resources and amassed knowledge of the new land. This proved essential for survival and was a key element of the journey from slavery to freedom, according to the conservancy website.
The African diaspora who sought freedom by traveling north used all they knew of the land as they crossed the Cumberland, Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountains. They had to avoid slave hunters, find food and shelter, and face harsh climate and terrain. Wild plants were foraged for food and medicine — remedies of their own making that addressed a myriad ailments.
To promote understanding of the African diaspora, the Heinz History Center and Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy collaborated to create the From Slavery to Freedom Garden, which opened in 2017.
Brown said Saturday’s event ties together Pittsburgh’s history with the Underground Railroad, the harvest season and the special month, enabling the conservancy to “make this a more inclusive event.” It excited staff and crews across the conservancy who have been prepping, pruning and preparing the garden “to make everything look beautiful for the event.”
He considers this small garden a ‘hidden gem” and a space to create conversation. The conservancy uses it for its summer camp programming and other family activities, and it held a Juneteenth story time connected to it this year.
“We are always trying to find ways to connect to it,” Brown explained. “For park visitors, they know that space. I see folks sitting on the benches, reading books, some tasting a few of our green beans.”
The important part is to realize what the garden represents and honors. “This is not the history we learned in school,” Brown said. “Over the last decade more ethnobotanists who are focused on the history have been going through the old slave narratives to find out more. It’s an exciting history that needs to be told.”
Plants have been carefully selected to reflect that. The perimeter of the garden highlights more native and indigenous things that could be found in the wild, he said, such as echinacea, a coneflower that people are familiar with it because it’s a form of medicine. Wild raspberries and blueberries, an apple tree and lesser-known plants, such as senna that grows wild, are planted there, too. Basil, corn, Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes and green beans — including rattlesnake beans that are green with some black stripes and have a sweeter taste — grow in the garden’s beds. Despite that they’re stereotypes, the garden also includes watermelon, okra and collard greens. “We’re really trying to celebrate the crops that was the formation of African American cuisine,” Brown said.
And beyond that treacherous trip north, the garden represents what freed slaves faced post “emancipation.” Gardens were really “an important part of survival for the freed slaves,” he noted.
Day in and day out, the conservancy’s horticulture team tends to the garden. Brown said the children in the various programs water it. A family based program for parents and children from infants to 5-year-olds help plant it in May.
Brown said it is not a production garden, but if there is excess bounty, the conservancy donates it to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank or 412 Rescue. “It’s an education space, a space of reflection and conversation,” he explained. “[And] it’s a tasting space.”
The conservancy continues that education as part of its mission with about 25 Pittsburgh Public and Propel schools in addition to its year-round programming and activities.
The event also offers the conservancy an opportunity to showcase Frick Park, the largest in the city, and the Frick Environmental Center.
“It’s one of the few places that you’re still in the city, but you feel like you are immersed in the forest,” Brown said. “We’re doing so much work to restore the woodlands here. Trees are being planted. Streams are getting cleaner. [It’s a] good place to learn about urban ecology.
“With this event and the connection to the garden, maybe some people will come to Frick Park who have never been here before. This is everybody’s park. Everybody is welcome here.”
Saturday’s event includes:
Live musical performances by Hazelwood-based Center of Life’s Youth Jazz Ensemble, Yusef Shelton, Byron Nash and Jacquea Mae, and DJ Shade Cobain.
Food and beverages from local vendors, including Chef Tia of Mana Meals Catering, Press House Coffee, 11th Hour Brewing, Vaya Food Truck, and Millie’s Ice Cream Truck.
The Jack Buncher Foundation provided funding for the event, with additional support from Giant Eagle, the Allegheny Regional Asset District and ZeroFossil.
More information on the From Slavery to Freedom Garden can be found here on the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy website. The link is https://pittsburghparks.org/harvestcelebration.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.