Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

A once-segregated botanical garden honors the Black workers who built it - Sun, 06 Sep 2026 PST

spokesman.com · 8dShare

When Helen Ferguson Williams was a girl, she begged her mother, Mary Elizabeth Ferguson, to take her to the Norfolk Botanical Garden. She wanted to be in the crowd when the Azalea Queen - often the daughter of a U.S. president or a foreign dignitary - received her crown of flowers. In 2007, Helen got a call from Martha McClenny Williams (no relation to Helen), a member of the garden’s board of directors. Helen’s mother, Martha Williams told her, was the last known living worker of the Black, mostly female crew who built the garden in the late 1930s.

First report: Black workers built a garden they couldn’t visit. A new memorial honors them. — washingtonpost.com, 9d