Transforming Pain Into Medicine: The Abolitionist’s Apothecary
In the Lower Ninth Ward, a section of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina and still struggling to recover, sumell and Annenkovna harvest calendula, an anti-inflammatory, and nasturtium, a disinfectant, from several Solitary Gardens in various stages of decay. Unlike the materials that build a prison, the “revolutionary mortar” used in these garden beds is designed to break down over time, typically beginning about two years after they’re built. When it does, gardeners are asked what they’d like their dissolved cells to become.
For Warren Palmer III, who earned a horticulture degree while incarcerated, the answer was to reshape his garden into the wings of the caduceus, the symbol of medicine—fitting, given that he’s now Freedom to Grow’s apothecary adviser. Today, his garden is filled with skullcap (a sedative), primrose (an antiseptic), chamomile (a calming herb), and a range of other plants that provide medicine, including two types of cotton, which supports menstrual health. Like all Freedom to Grow gardens, small signs teach visitors about a plant’s medicinal qualities and its lessons on abolition. (An online companion offers further education on abolition, prompting visitors to contemplate questions about systems of oppression and cycles of trauma.)
“When you put a seed in the soil, who knows if it’ll flourish or prosper or what will become of it?”
When the plants are harvested, they’re brought to the Abolitionist’s Apothecary, a nook within the John Thompson Legacy Center, where Freedom to Grow is headquartered. The center is named in honor of an organizer who became a criminal justice reform advocate while spending 18 years wrongly incarcerated.
The shelves in the apothecary hold an abundance of dried herbs, leaves, and flowers, as well as bottles and jars of all shapes and sizes holding tinctures, salves, balms, and ointments. Those products will soon be sold in Planting Justice’s pay-what-you-can café in Oakland, as well as through a wellness CSA in New Orleans.
Palmer was incarcerated at 17 for second-degree murder and released 30 years later, in 2021. Like many incarcerated in Angola, nearly three-quarters of whom, like him, are Black, he was forced to pick cotton as part of the prison’s labor program. By inverting the way agriculture is used within prisons, Freedom to Grow is turning a source of pain into one of healing.
For Annenkovna, the pain of incarceration is still fresh. The Colorado Supreme Court overturned her conviction last year after she’d spent six years in prison. For two of those years, she designed her own Solitary Garden, filled with her “seven sisters”—a collection of plants that connects her to her roots in Azerbaijan, each with its own medicinal properties: peppermint for clarity of mind, rue for sinus infections, mullein for respiratory health, garlic to lower blood pressure, dill for pancreatic health, mustard for digestion, and yarrow for healing wounds and menstrual pain. When she first walked into the apothecary, she found her seven sisters, harvested from her Solitary Garden and blended into a tea to help heal those harmed by the criminal legal system.
“I looked up and she was holding the jar,” sumell says, “and I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s all working.’”
Putting Lawns to Use: Liberation Landscaping
At The First 72+, a transitional home for formerly incarcerated men re-entering society a mile from downtown New Orleans, Annenkovna manages three garden beds planted as a pilot for Liberation Landscaping. Community members who take part will pay to have their lawns transformed into medicinal forests to supply the apothecary and provide jobs for formerly incarcerated people.
This is a heavily symbolic place to launch this project. If Louisiana is the belly of the beast, this is among its darkest chambers. Orleans Parish Prison towers behind the gardens, a reminder of the thousands who were abandoned there without power and food when Katrina hit. The prison never reopened, but another stands nearby, holding 1,500 inmates—well above its capacity—and yet another is being built. In March, Louisiana resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus, making Freedom to Grow’s work all the more urgent, sumell says.
“When you put a seed in the soil, who knows if it’ll flourish or prosper or what will become of it? Who knows of a soul, what will become of it?” Annenkovna says. “But it has the potential to contribute to society and give back and sustain and beautify and support others around it. That’s what plants do, and that’s what humans are also designed to do.”
