About the Archive.
Belle’s Garden is an archive dedicated to creativity, preservation, and community.
Belle is a given nickname of the archivist’s great-grandmother. Belleaner Johnson, affectionately known as Tuga or Mama, was the family matriarch. In Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Walker reminds us that Black women often express their creativity through gardening. Belle had a beautiful garden with a love for zinnias, petunias, begonias, and red verbena. She passed her green thumb to her children and grandchildren, including the archivist’s father.
Belle’s Garden is an archival project that celebrates giving us our flowers, genealogy, & Black culture.
"Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength -- in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."
- Alice Walker (1974)
About the Archivist.
Hi! I’m Olivia, a writer and aspiring archivist residing in Michigan. My inspiration for this work comes from a deep love for Black history and culture. I’m interested documenting in the following:
The experiences of Black folks residing in or from Ann Arbor
Oral histories about gentrification, historically Black neighborhoods, desegregation, and migration
Black gardeners
