If you don’t know who Hattie Carthan is yet, you should! As we celebrate Juneteenth, it’s important to remember the role that Black Americans have had in shaping environmentalism. Hattie Carthan, known as the ‘Tree Lady of Brooklyn’, lived in the New York City neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant since the 1920’s. In the 1960’s she realized that her neighborhood had completely deteriorated and lost its trees, thanks to the blockbusting and redlining practices that took place in Bed-Stuy. A lifelong lover of trees, Hattie decided she was going to do something about it.
Determined to return her block to its former tree-lined glory, Hattie set to work forming a block association, hosting a barbecue for the neighborhood to raise money. With those funds, she bought and planted four trees for the block. The following year she planned another barbecue, this time inviting New York City’s Mayor Lindsay. To her surprise, he attended! As her reputation grew, the City Parks Department offered to match every four trees she planted with six of their own. Each year more block associations formed, with Hattie presiding over all of them as chairman of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Beautification Committee. Within just a few years, around 1,500 trees had been planted in the neighborhood!
Hattie didn’t stop at tree planting, however. She received a grant to form the Neighborhood Tree Corps, which taught youth about tree planting and gave them work for the summer. She also campaigned to save a 40-foot Southern Magnolia tree that was set to be taken down, ultimately resulting in the tree being saved and designated a living landmark by the City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The brownstone the tree stood in front of was purchased by Hattie, who turned it into the Magnolia Tree Earth Center, an environmental education organization which still operates out of the same building today.
Hattie Carthan passed away in 1984, but her legacy still lives on in the beautiful, tree-lined streets of Bed-Stuy, which will provide shade and beauty for decades to come.
Read a 1982 interview with Hattie Carthan from the New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/08/garden/urban-conservation-a-one-woman-effort.html