A Southern Arts Federation exhibit is enabling students to gain cultural knowledge about African Americans during the 10th annual Southern Cultures Festival held this week.

The exhibit, African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South, by Dr. Richard Westma-cott, professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Georgia, is on display until Oct. 25 in the Paul Meek Library.

The traveling exhibit is based on the book of the same name published by the University of Tennessee Press (1992). The designs and functions of African- American gardens are explored and the role of each garden in the life of the family is discussed.

The purpose of the exhibit is to focus on how gardens have changed over time by showing the traditions and independence that have molded rural gardens and yards of African-Americans.

One of the pictures shows slaves working on a plantation picking cotton as an overseer on a horse watches. The exhibit has a diagram of a map that presents the difference between a slave's yard and a renter's yard.

According to information provided in the exhibit, “Most slaves, but not all, were allowed to have gardens, but many had little time to tend them. Slave owners knew that one way to increase the slaves’ attachment to the plantation was to allow them to have gardens.”

The exhibit also shows different patterns of yards and gardens today and how some gardens are symbolic. One example is that “in many African-American cultures, soil is sacred and man attempts to live in harmony with nature.” Another example is that a flower yard and decorated porch represent welcome and an invitation to stop by and visit.

The exhibit overall is beautiful as well as educational, and provides interesting historical information about the culture.