did a bunch of market research or anything—I went ahead and tried something. And we have continued to tweak it in response to what people wanted from us. We just asked people if they wanted to be a leader and then trained those leaders, through conference calls at first. Then we began to professionalize that experience in very structured ways. Now, we have a summit that all the leaders attend, with materials, training modules, and ongoing education, covering everything from risk management to planning logistics to policy and story-telling interpretation. We adapt it every year depending on what the leaders say they could use more of or less of, and we involve our partners to help deliver some of that content based on their expertise.
Why is it important to help connect African Americans to the outdoors?
Why wouldn’t it be important? It’s the human experience. Everybody needs nature. And when people don’t have a connection to nature and the outdoors, they’re missing out on mental and physical benefits that can’t be obtained anywhere else. You’re healthier, you’re happier, and you’re spiritually more grounded through those connections. And it doesn’t matter if you’re African American. If you don’t have that opportunity, that means you have a diminished quality of life.
I feel that, in our work, that’s the highest motivation we have, and there’s also this very specific African-American narrative. That involves a recollection of harm in nature and how we as African Americans do have to overcome the generational memory and experience of terror in the woods. We’re talking history from the ’50s and ’60s--not too long ago. For some of the toughest people I know who live in edgy urban settings, the idea of being in the woods on a trail is terrifying. Because bad things have happened to black people in the woods--it’s an undeniable fact.
So how do you deal with that negative history?
Now we have a chance, with Outdoor Afro and others, to tell a new narrative--one that’s about joy and healing. After some of the police-related violence and shootings in the country over the last few years, what Outdoor Afro leadership and participants chose to do was a series of nature healing hikes. It’s taking our burden to where we always knew we could go--down by the riverside. That has been a way for us to cope with the uncertainties that we have experienced as a country.
The response to the healing hikes was overwhelmingly positive. In Oakland, the hike was organized in partnership with law enforcement. It was not meant to be a PR platform for any group—it was just intended to be there for the local community. We were in this moment when it felt like there was nothing but polarization. We have to figure out ways to get connected again, to get to know each other again. And being out in nature is one way to do that--to have people out there who don’t know each other and who may need to release their frustrations and talk about their challenges—it’s different from meeting on the sidewalk and talking.
And it has been a unifier. With nature, it doesn’t know if you are black or white. The trees don’t know what color you are. The animals don’t know what your socioeconomic status is, and it’s really a place we can be equalized with our fellow man and feel free from the weight and strain that those kinds of assumptions about who we are cause in our daily lives.
Why diversity in the outdoors important?
Everybody needs to be engaged so that these places can continue to exist for the
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