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.

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.

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.”

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!
