Ridgely, MD
Adkins Arboretum, in partnership with Beech Works, will launch the Rooted Wisdom podcast with a listening party on Thursday, September 26, at 7 p.m. The event will be held in person at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, MD, and will also be available via live stream, viewable at rootedwisdom.org. The event includes the presentation of excerpts from the first three episodes of the new podcast, a panel discussion with the Rooted Wisdom host and episode guests and a Q&A with the panel for both in-person and virtual audiences.
In this new podcast series, Anthony Cohen, Menare Foundation President and explorer of the American past, sets out to find the stories of the Underground Railroad. Visiting well-known and overlooked sites, Rooted Wisdom reveals the people and places that shaped our history and considers how their stories continue to shape our lives today. Building off the 2022 Rooted Wisdom: Nature’s Role in the Underground Railroad Guided Experience, which explores how freedom seekers used their knowledge of and connection to nature to aid in escaping enslavement, the Rooted Wisdom podcast will extend to investigate the larger history of the Underground Railroad.
Cohen, historian and the series host, said, “The podcast format allows us to dig deeper into the lives of the freedom seekers introduced in the guided experience. In talking with our first three guests—a filmmaker, a nature photographer/biologist and a non-profit leader—we can further realize the project’s purpose, which is to inspire conversation about our enslaved ancestors, to honor their knowledge and to discover how their legacy continues to shape us today.”
The series will launch with three episodes in September that revisit the site that kicked off the Rooted Wisdom project: Adkins Arboretum. “The Arboretum is excited to be a part of the growth of this project,” said Adkins Executive Director Ginna Tiernan. “It is important to continually re-evaluate how we use public gardens and outdoor spaces today. We hope Rooted Wisdom will serve as a model for other public gardens looking to engage their sites’ entire history and become more inclusive.”
Rooted Wisdom will be available on rootedwisdom.org/podcast and available for download on all major podcast directories, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
The Rooted Wisdom podcast is a production of Beech Works in collaboration with Cohen’s Menare Foundation. The first three episodes of the series were produced in partnership with Adkins Arboretum and explore how the history of the Underground Railroad and our experiences today converge in nature. The project was supported in part by a grant from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), funded by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, as well as by Eastern Shore Heritage, Inc. with State funds from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, an instrumentality of the State of Maryland.
The Rooted Wisdom podcast listening party will take place on Thursday, September 26 at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.), in-person at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, MD, and livestream at rootedwisdom.org. The event is free and open to all. Registration for the in-person event is required and available here. Registration for the virtual event is encouraged here. The program will include a panel discussion with the series host, historian Anthony Cohen, and episode guests Mecca Lewis and David Greaves. Project collaborator George Burroughs of Beech Works will moderate the discussion.
###
Located at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County, Maryland, Adkins Arboretum is one of the few botanical institutions focused on conserving and promoting the flora of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. The Arboretum’s collection comprises 400 acres of native plant communities in cultivated gardens and successional patterns of meadows, old fields, pine plantations, young hardwood forests, mature bottomland forests, and wetlands. The Arboretum strives to inspire environmental stewardship, provide respite and healing, and celebrate natural and cultural diversity through the joy and wonder of the natural world. Learn more at adkinsarboretum.org.
Beech Works is a non-profit organization dedicated to broadening public discourse and advancing public education on social issues through thought-provoking documentary and narrative media projects. With educational and community outreach, Beech Works strives to engage, inspire, and foster discussions on the issues facing our society today. Learn more at beechworks.org.