This semester, a Black Nature Walk will wind through Nichols Arboretum in the trails around the peony garden. The walk is the creation of a group of students enrolled in a Black Ecologies course taught by Professor Bénédicte Boisseron from the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Black ecology is the study of Black people in relation to their environment. In 2022, poet and scholar Joshua Bennett curated an outdoor exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden featuring work by Black poets. Inspired by this, students are now creating a similar experience at Nichols Arboretum. They will showcase poems from Camille T. Dungy's anthology "Black Nature," along with a special "In Memoriam" poem by Marcellus Williams, a death row inmate executed in Missouri on Tuesday, September 24th, 2024.

The exhibit will open on October 16th at 1 p.m. at the Washington Heights Arboretum Entrance. Come for a unique, immersive nature walk focusing on Black Nature and Ecology, with the participation of DAAS member Elizabeth James for Indigenous storytelling. If you are coming from the DEI x Sustainability Summit in the Michigan Union, we will be leaving as a group at 12:30PM.