Tour the newly reimagined Carnivorous and Coastal Plain Plant Collection that features a variety of carnivorous plants native to North Carolina, including pitcher plants and Venus flytraps. Due to habitat loss, they are imperiled in their biologically rich native range just a few hours away from Duke Gardens. Join Maegan Luckett, horticulturist in the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants, to meet these and other fascinating plants that grow in moist, nutrient-poor soils, such as pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens), several species of bog orchids and the delightful orange milkwort (Senega lutea), also known as “Bog Cheetos.” Learn about the importance of conservation efforts to preserve these North Carolina treasures.

Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as a strategy for Black self-determination. In his new book Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global South, Duke University professor Dr. Jarvis C. McInnis charts a new account of Black modernity by centering Tuskegee’s vision of agrarian worldmaking. He traces the diasporic ties and networks of exchange that linked Black communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although Washington is often regarded as an accommodationist, McInnis shows how artists, intellectuals and political leaders—including George Washington Carver, Jean Price-Mars, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay and Marcus Garvey—adapted Tuskegee’s methods into dynamic strategies for liberation in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Jamaica. A local land and farm advocate will join Dr. McInnis to discuss the contemporary dynamics of this groundbreaking book. Copies will be available for purchase while supplies last, and a book signing will take place following the discussion.