Brotherly Love in Full Bloom: Local Project Gives Black Men Their Flowers

Learn more about Black Men Flower Project's work bringing love, healing, and recognition to Black men—one powerful bouquet at a time.

Brotherly Love in Full Bloom: Local Project Gives Black Men Their Flowers
Photo credit: Sheldon Hamilton

By Kristin Satterlee

The Black Men Flower Project has moved to New Mexico! The nonprofit has a beautiful mission, challenging stereotypes of Black men and boys by giving them flowers to recognize their beauty, humanity, and contributions.

“I just don’t want to be here anymore”

Robert Washington-Vaughns founded the nonprofit in 2021, a few years after he was hospitalized for depression and suicidal ideation. “I basically had everything that I was raised to believe that I should have, like a nice car, a big TV, furnished apartment, a good job with benefits… and I was extremely unhappy.”

After a trip to the emergency room, Washington-Vaughns spent three months in intensive group therapy. “I talked about my feelings. I got to make art every day, meditate, spend time in nature—and I had a community to do things collaboratively, not just by myself.”

When the program ended, Washington-Vaughns went back to work with $13,000 in medical debt.

Photo credit: Hyunju Blemel

Give him his flowers

And then he started hearing people saying something new: “He deserves his flowers, give him his flowers. They meant some form of gratitude or recognition, but it wasn't like physical flowers.”

An idea dawned. “How can I take this three months of intensive group therapy and compact it into a bouquet of flowers for other men, especially Black men? Because we don't get our flowers, we don't get recognition, and we're all heading down this one-way road. Really like a cliff, you know?” So Washington-Vaughns started simply, by just giving his male friends flowers.

Punched in the heart

The impact on a man who receives flowers is huge, Washington-Vaughns says, “especially the first time.”

“The first time I got an arrangement, an actual bouquet, I was meeting with the florist in Chicago and … he had the tiniest bouquet of flowers and he’s like, these are for you. And I felt like someone had just ripped all my clothes off me. And I'm sitting in this restaurant naked… And you know, I had been doing this for two years. I think [men who get a bouquet feel] a lot of confusion, awe, and then gratitude. That's how I felt. I see it in other men's faces when they get this bouquet… it's like, wait, what? This is for me?”

“It was just like getting punched in the heart.”

Robert Washington-Vaughns gives author Darryl Lorenzo Wellington his flowers. / Photo courtesy of Black Men Flower Project

Falling into place

The nonprofit has new offerings, including a series of somatic healing sessions in Santa Fe with Trey Pickett of Albuquerque’s VIIIZON dance academy—an opportunity for healing in a Black male space. “You start with Black men and everything else falls into place.” Washington-Vaughns means to bring Black Men Flower Project events to Albuquerque. “I’m kind of like Johnny Flowerseed. I take the project with me wherever I move. I'm in New Mexico now, so it's here.”

Over the years, Black Men Flower Project has given out about 500 bouquets, growing to include partner florists across multiple states, a board, and volunteers. “Because the love is just like, it's overwhelming.”

Are you a Black man who would like a Black man (including yourself!) to get his flowers? Nominate him at https://blackmenflowerproject.org/nominate!

Robert Washington-Vaughns gives artist Raashan Ahmad his flowers. / Photo courtesy of Black Men Flower Project