National Parks: Inside a Movement to Attract More Visitors of Color | National Geographic

[Music] There was a time when I would see African-Americans at such an infrequent rate that when I saw them, it was just that silence, and that was once every month or so when I first came here. But now my expectation is that every day I'm here in at my job, I will see an African-American.

In 2013, after visiting several national parks and not seeing people of color—not seeing African-Americans—I started to grow concerned as to why that is. So I asked, is this a problem for the park service? The park service will openly admit to this being a problem; they just don't have the means to solve it. So it will take grassroots organizations such as mine to come in and engage communities of color in these outdoor spaces. Their families haven't taken them to places like this because their families don't believe that there's a cultural connection or that these places are places for them.

Because the key thing to keep in mind is that African-Americans, we come out of a history of exclusion, not inclusion. So it's nice for us to actually receive an invitation, and so that there's a sense of safety that when we get there, we'll be treated fairly and we'll be treated with respect. There are African-Americans right now who have become the director of the National Park Service. I'm referring to Bob Ston. There are African-Americans who are right now Chief Rangers, but they are in general unknown to the larger culture of African-Americans. So there needs to be a little bit more clarity and an expression of the accomplishments that these pioneers have made.

Before there was a National Park Service in 1916, it was the US Army that took care of all the national parks. And it just so happened that during that period, there was the Ninth Cavalry, which was an all-Black unit. The Buffalo Soldiers were African-American soldiers that were allowed to join the regular US military after the end of the Civil War. So they went to use and protected it from poachers, protected it from people who would start forest fires. And part of that whole history has been sort of lost in the way American history is taught.

I never saw people that really looked like me on the trails. And you know, I was fortunate enough to have a father that was a lover of nature too. And so at our early age, I remember one of our first national parks we went to use, and I was just blown away. We hiked up to the fall, and I've been hooked. I've been hooked ever since. Over there, it's important for people of color to develop or reestablish relationships with the outdoors so that in 15 to 20 years, when people of color are the number one demographic in the country, we will have established those relationships.

Well, when Olivia is an adult and she's my age, I really hope that these parks are preserved, giving her this introduction now. I hope that this seed is planted so deep within her that, you know, we never know; we may be raising one of the world's, you know, conservationists. But this is just beautiful; it's beautiful, and we need to protect it. [Music]