Global Courant
ALLEN, Texas – I couldn’t help feeling anxious as I drove deeper into rural north Texas. The familiar coffee shops and apartment buildings of downtown Dallas faded into swathes of cattle and single-family homes surrounded by greenery in Allen. I would spend the weekend in native Blackland Prairie grassland Texas survival school‘s basic wilderness survival class.
My friends and family had a mixed reaction when I told them I would be camping with a bunch of strangers and learning how to make fires, navigate land, provide first aid in the “wilderness”, learn water safety, and more. Some thought it was cool and exciting, others came up with a well-known axiom: “Those are things for white people!”
So it didn’t surprise me that most of the two dozen participants—a mix of adults and children—were white. I was one of four black people in the class, including three black men, one of whom was an instructor. I was the only black woman, and I caught curious glances from some of the other contestants as I piled my box braids on top of my head to keep the bugs out of my hair.
The first evening we sat around a campfire and gave introductions. I told them that I had never gone camping and had spent most of my life in big cities. We learned about all the gear we had to buy for the class: a tarp and paracord for shelter, an iron bar to start a fire, a full-tang knife, and several other items I hadn’t even heard of until I signed up. I spent most of the first night struggling to pitch my tent – with the help of YouTube – asking myself, “What have I gotten myself into?”
Members of Vibe Tribe Adventures at Clear Creek Rafting Co. in Idaho Springs, Colo. Courtesy of Vibe Tribe Adventures
Taking this wilderness class seemed like a natural extension of my love of the outdoors, but my own isolation during the course left me wondering if the old axiom was true to some extent. Was communicating deeply with nature really a “white thing”? I found that couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only does black culture have a rich history with nature, black people across the country are regaining the outdoors by forming their own communities of nature lovers.
Groups like Vibe Tribe Adventures, Outdoor black women and the National Brotherhood of Skiers are just a few of the many organizations working to provide safe spaces for black people to enjoy outdoor activities and dispel myths that the outdoors are not ours. Many of these groups hold hikes and other outdoor activities in honor of Juneteenth.
Vibe Tribe Adventures began as Black Girls Hike, the brainchild of Jessica Newton, 39, who developed a passion for the outdoors as a child at a mostly white private school. About 1,200 black women joined Black Girls Hike in the year after its launch in 2017, which Newton said was “overwhelming.” She, too, was indoctrinated into the belief that black people don’t like outdoor activities.
Members of Vibe Tribe Adventures gather at Grays Peak in Colorado, July 17, 2022.Courtesy of Vibe Tribe Adventures
Today, Vibe Tribe Adventures offers events for black people to do everything from camping and fishing to archery. However, growth has not been easy. Newton said police approached her hiking group once in Colorado after a group of white riders complained about seeing a large group of black women. One rider reportedly called the group a “crowd.”
“Throughout history, we weren’t could even go national and state parks because of our skin color. There’s a trauma related to being outside,” Newton added. “There’s a lot of healing we as a black community need to do to reconnect and deepen our relationship with the outdoors because it’s our natural birthright to be there.”
Henri Rivers, president of the National Brotherhood of Skiers, agreed. He’s argued for decades that black people belong in snow sports, starting with his own racist encounters as a teenager in New York – and the only black person on his high school’s ski team.
“They called me all sorts of things,” he said of the white skiers. “Jigaboo, jungle bunny, ask ‘What are you doing here?’ They probably said it at first to keep me from coming back, but it didn’t work.”
That’s no coincidence Yellowstone, the first national park in the US, was founded shortly after the Civil War. As industrialization and westward expansion continued, white elites supported the proliferation of national parks in response to urban sprawl. In their eyes, cities were “dirty” and filled with people of color and immigrants, while “clean” natural areas were best suited for whites, according to KangJae “Jerry” Leean assistant professor at North Carolina State University.
Members of the Sno-Burners Ski Club Inc. meet in February at the annual National Brotherhood of Skiers summit in Vail, Colo.Courtesy of the National Brotherhood of Skiers
Black people often saw it “For Whites Only” signs in national parks during the Jim Crow era. Even after national parks were officially closed in 1945 several parks resisted these changes. Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, which had a “negro area” and banned black people from other areas of the park, remained separate until 1950.
Black people made up just 6% of visitors to the country’s 424 national parks in 2018, according to the most recent data from the National Park Service.
“The relationship between humans and non-human nature has been shaped by whites. So why wouldn’t you think it has to be something ‘white’ to do?” said Carolyn Finney, an environmentalist and author of “Black Faces, White Spaces: A New Look at African Americans’ Relationship with the Outdoors.” “The environmental story, the manifest destiny, the creation of the national parks – that story is not untrue, it is just highly incomplete. When a lot of those things happened, there was slavery, Jim Crow segregation, Native Americans were killed and removed from these places to create these spaces.
I didn’t know this history before enrolling in the wilderness course, but I was well aware of the racial dynamics that colored my presence in class. As my wilderness class learned to tie basic knots — such as slip knots, hanging knots, and the hitch — it became clear that other participants were curious about my presence.
Member of Vibe Tribe Adventures zip lines in Costa RicaCourtesy of Vibe Tribe Adventures
A little boy asked where I was from and if I needed help with my buttons (I didn’t), and an older man said to me, ‘I’m glad you’re here. We need more of this!” We both knew what he meant. Throughout the experience, though, I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have other black women with me, or a similar course tailored to black women.
This sense of community is common when it comes to black outdoor enthusiasts. Toyin Ajayi launched Outdoor black women in 2021 in Atlanta because she was looking for “a space for black women like me.” Ajayi, who lives in a camper van, has loved being in nature since she was a child, visiting butterfly gardens and flower fields. Ajayi said the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot have all bolstered conversations about safe spaces for black people.
“There were a lot of black people looking for safe places to camp and just experience the outdoors. People would go to campgrounds and Trump flags would fly everywhere,” Ajayi said, citing its many mental health benefits being outdoors, such as relieving depression and stress. People around her wanted to know where they could camp safely without being harassed or discriminated against. “I wanted to build a safe place for that. I thought that if I needed a space like that, there were other black women who probably needed that space too.
That’s what Ajayi did. Today, the Outdoorsy Black Women social network has 15 chapters across the country, a book club, and even a coloring book. Black women meet to go on hikes together and participate in camping events such as the organization’s annual event Wine and waterfalls retreat, where dozens of women gather each year to camp and bond through everything from hikes to yoga sessions. The group even sat down for a fireside chat with Finney and learned about the history of black people’s exclusion from the outdoors.
“Many of these groups were founded in response to a larger environmental narrative in this country that excludes the experience of nonwhite people in general and African Americans in particular,” Finney said. “People form these groups because they want to feel safe or take more of a risk of being outside and trying something that I’ve never done before.”
A member of Vibe Tribe Adventures is resting from snowshoeing.Courtesy of Vibe Tribe Adventures
Safely enjoying the outdoors can be hard work. Texas Survival School instructors spent hours teaching us how to properly boil and filter water for drinking, tend to bleeding wounds, and avoid deadly creatures like venomous snakes and spiders. We often worked in pairs, and I found a weekend partner in one of the black men in the group. We didn’t acknowledge our blackness, or why we were drawn to each other. But I felt a certain amount of security between us as we worked together. While I would have liked to see more black women in the classroom, I was delighted to see the faces of black men and found a level of camaraderie in them.
Founded in 1974, the National Brotherhood of Skiers was a safe haven for black snow sports enthusiasts for decades before Rivers joined in 1996. Today, thousands of skiers make up the more than 50 clubs across the country. For Rivers, now the organization’s president, his first NBS summit all those years ago challenged his own indoctrinated beliefs about skiing.
He went to the event thinking, “Oh, black people don’t ski very well,” he recalled. “I got there and half of them skied really well! So 1996 was my awakening,” Rivers said.
This experience stayed with Rivers as he joined NBS in his twenties and eventually became its president. The NBS conducts outreach programs and uses grants and funding from other organizations to provide equipment, classes, and equipment for black athletes.
“Our goal is to turn them into snow sports enthusiasts for life,” he said. “There is a pressure to identify and get kids out there and expose them to winter sports. I look at ski resorts the way I look at golf resorts or country clubs. They are built and designed for the privileged white population. We want to break that.”
Char Adams tends to a fire in Allex, Texas, at the Texas Survival School in May.Thanks to Char Adams
I finished the Wilderness Course with a few small leaves in my box braids, the smell of bug spray on all my belongings, and most importantly, a wealth of new knowledge and skills. As I drove from the grassland to downtown Dallas, I yearned to share this knowledge and experience with other black women. Like Newton, Ajayi, and Rivers, I learned that if I found so much joy and fulfillment in the outdoors, then this experience was definitely meant for me and those who are like me. Maybe it’s time for a new axiom about the outdoors: “It’s Black people stuff!”
