Abra Lee (born 1978[1]) is an American public horticulturalist, historian and writer, who researches Black garden history and raises awareness of the subject through social media.
As of 2021, Lee worked as a freelance horticultural writer and lecturer, for institutions such as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre, Temple University, Smithsonian Gardens, and others.[6][7][4][8][9] Her work seeks to break down the barriers that prevent black people participating in horticulture.[10] She does this through researching and highlighting the lives of Black women in horticulture, from antebellum history to the present day.[8] Lee says that the "beautiful thing about Black garden history is that it can't be separated from Black history and it can't be separated from American history".[8] She founded the social media platform Conquer the Soil, which raises horticultural awareness through Black garden history and current events.[11]
Lee was selected a 2019-20 Longwood Gardens Fellow.[12][11] As part of her fellowship she travelled to Château de Villandry where she researched lesser known histories of the garden, as well as supporting a curatorial project which compared the lives of Ann Coleman Carvallo at Château Villandry and Anne Spencer of Lynchburg.[13] Her first book Conquer the Soil: Black America and the Untold Stories of Our Country's Gardeners, Farmers, and Growers is due to be published in 2022 by Indigo Books.[14][15][16]
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