Photo By Nkrumiah Frazier

The National Park Trust and our mascot Buddy Bison wants everyone to have an American park experience. We are inviting every family in America to visit a national, state or local park and play outdoors on May 19, 2012! As Buddy Bison says, “Explore outdoors, the parks are yours!”

Last year, nearly 200 mayors coast to coast signed official proclamations and many hosted events in their community parks to celebrate the day. In addition, more than 15,300 families participated.

The vision is simply to remind adults to take a child in their lives to a park – where they can hike a trail, visit a national historic site, or even canoe on a river. American adults live busy and pressure-filled lives – why not give them a reason to take the time to connect a child with an American treasure – a park?

As of this week 45,000 people registered for the event, 45 states participating, plus nearly 200 mayors and the Governors of WV and CO who have signed official proclamations!

Outdoor Afros had a blast last weekend at one of our largest meetups: Hike Angel Island! Hosted by Outdoor Afro  Sela Steiger and led by Cliff Sorrell of Trekking for Life, the route ventured around the South Western part of the island, stopping at different sites of historical and cultural relevance.

Among them was the Chapel of Saint Marie at Camp Reynolds, significant for employing African American chaplain Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth. An interesting figure in California Military history, Allensworth retired from the Army as the highest ranking African American officer in 1906.

Twenty five attendees of Hike Angel Island enjoyed extraordinary views and vantages, a fun ferry ride, and lots of interesting facts about the island and its many uses, past and present. Hikers were also blessed with excellent walking weather-warm and sunny with a nice ocean breeze!

Contest winners will be featured in the Healthy Parks Healthy People Festival in June, and there are three (3) $500 top prizes and tons of other great prizes.

In this example, we love how youth share in the video what they care about in nature – like tossing a ball, grilling meats, and hanging out with loved ones within an appreciation for surrounding nature.

Learn more by “Liking” the contest on Facebook!

“My son George at the Tooth of Time summit peak (9,000 ft), Philmont Scout Ranch, Philmont New Mexico. This represented a summit in character as he had carried his teammate’s gear in order for both to reach the top together. The outdoors makes men out of boys.” — yes it does!

She won this nifty lamp sponsored by the Coleman Company!

I also have to share with you our very close runner-up (by one vote!), submitted by Cydonie Brown, of a beautiful smiling sister National Park Service Ranger!

Thanks to everyone who participated by sharing images and voting –  by doing so, you are helping shift our culture’s perceptions of who engages with nature!

What memories do you have of your family enjoying nature? What can we imagine of our future in nature?

• National Parks are free to enter!

Click to find a location near you!

 What is National Public Lands Day?

National Public Lands Day (NPLD) is the nation’s largest, single-day volunteer event for public lands in the United States. In 2011, NPLD will be held on September 24, 2011. Register a site for NPLD or volunteer.

NPLD began in 1994 with three sites and 700 volunteers. It proved to be a huge success and NPLD became a yearly tradition, typically held on the last Saturday in September.  Since the first NPLD, the event has grown by leaps and bounds.

Last year, 170,000 volunteers worked at over 2,080 sites in every state, the District of Columbia and in many U.S. territories. NPLD volunteers:

• Removed an estimated 450 tons of trash
• Collected an estimated 20,000 pounds of invasive plants
• Built and maintained an estimated 1,320 miles of trails
• Planted an estimated 100,000 trees, shrubs and other native plants
• Contributed an estimated $15 million to improve public lands across the country

Eight federal agencies, nonprofits and state, regional and local governments participate in the annual day of caring for shared lands.

National Public Lands Day keeps the promise of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the “tree army” that worked from 1933-1942 to preserve and protect America’s natural heritage.

Where were YOU spotted on Sunday in the outdoors?

The ride was suited for all ages, and designed for riders to explore the benefits of local “green” transportation corridors that also connect us with nature.

Our group assembled at the train station, where our bikes were checked by cycle wizard Brian Drayton, founder of Richmond Spokes. After a brief intro and safety talk, we cruised 14 miles along the Ohlone and Richmond Greenways.

We stopped along the way to learn from naturalist Bethany Facendini of the EBRP the many different plant and animal species that thrive along the corridor.

Effortlessly, we rode through the cities of Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito then arrived in Richmond, where we were welcomed by the staff of Urban Tilth, who provided a delicious chicken kabob barbeque and refreshments.

Doria Robinson, the passionate Executive Director of Urban Tilth, gave us a tour of butterfly and vegetable gardens created and tended by her local staff who are transforming their neighborhood, with great pride, one seed at a time.

Thank you Doria Robinson, Brian Drayton, and Bethany Facedini for coming together to create yet another powerful experience connecting community with nature.

Read more about the Richmond Greenway and view more pictures!

What “greenways” exist in your community?

A few weekends ago, I went swimming with a group of friends at Lake Anza at Tilden Park in Berkeley for the third year in a row.

The idea for a swim began through a 2009 Twitter conversation with my friend Charles Perkins. As a child in Berkeley public schools, Lake Anza had “childhood nostalgia” for Perkins. He remembered swimming at the lake more than the nearby WIlliard Pool while he was in elementary school.

Two other friends, Katia Allen, and Chinyere Tutashinda, soon joined the Twitter conversation. We all liked to swim, despite the reservations of many of our peers. Just a few months before, USA Swimming released a report about six out of ten Black children being unable to swim. And according to a University of Memphis study, 70 percent of black people cannot swim or have limited swimming abilities.

“Anytime you talk about Black people and swimming, that issue is going to come up,” Perkins said. Since all four of us could swim, could we be the four Blacks out of ten that could swim?

There are many reasons that Black children don’t swim. Many Black children, whose parents grew up in Jim Crow communities, did not have opportunities to learn how to swim. And many of those folks sure didn’t teach their children. And many people don’t have access to neighborhood pools, so many young people grow up without learning how to swim. Some people even associate swimming with “acting white.”

Not to mention the transformative effects of water on Black hair!

Growing up, I was fortunate that my mom insisted I learned how to swim. As long as I can remember, I could swim. In fact, when I fell in Lake Merritt feeding ducks in 1987, I was able doggy paddle back to the edge.

(Sidenote: Swimming in Lake Anza is far better than swimming in Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Uggh!)

I later moved to nearby island town of Alameda. Although I lived in what some people considered the “ghetto”—in the historically segregated West End of Alameda—the Buena Vista Apartments had a big swimming pool. Coupled with some swimming lessons at the Encinal Swim Center, I practiced in my neighborhood every summer in our pool. But swimming in neighborhood pools is nothing like going out to the lake.

Lake Anza is like a small beach inside of Tilden Park. Just past the Little Farm, this jewel is surrounded by hiking trails in the Berkeley Hills. For a small entrance fee, you can enter Lake Anza’s sandy beach area. Surrounded by trees in sort of a clearing, it is full of sun and free of extra wind. There’s also a nearby picnic area.

We began our annual Lake Anza swim in 2009. As my friend Katia said, “There’s no such thing as a ‘first annual’ anything.” But after going two years in a row, “Now it’s a tradition.” This year, we decided to go a little earlier in the summer, and we also decided to invite a few friends.

I put out a Facebook event called, “Fantastic Voyage at Lake Anza” I invited a few people. Somewhat to my surprise, a lot of folks wanted to go. Unfortunately, many had scheduling conflicts, while there were also some who could not swim.

On short notice, the turnout at the Lake tripled. Besides our group, we also had Jumoke Hinton Hodge, Falilah Aisha Bilal, Joy Gerner, Khaya Wig, and Cedric Troupe. (Cedric convinced me to swim with him September of this year during the Escape from Alcatraz swim.) And a few folks brought their children and families.

We brought fruits and vegetables and other snacks. Some of the children played with buckets and shovels, while the bigger (adult) kids swam out to the lap area. A few of the guys took a little hike on the main trail too.

“It’s important to get back to the simple things in order to connect with nature,” Perkins told me. “Swimming at Lake Anza is a very spiritual and holistic process; walking on dirt instead of concrete and swimming in a lake instead of a pool.”

Many people don’t have access to pools. Lake Anza is a great place to swim. And there are lifeguards on duty.

Swimming at Lake Anza is a great experience that I hope to share with others for many summers to come.

Reginald,  son of Deborah James, was born in Oakland, CA and raised in the nearby island city of Alameda. He is currently studying Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, after transferring from Laney College, where he focused on African American Studies, journalism, and political science.

All the time I hear reasons why African-Americans do not engage with the outdoors. From experience, I know it’s not just because of the bugs, or a rustic engagement with nature that can signal a lack of modern-day progress, but sometimes because of the people they may encounter along the way. In some circles, whispers still remain of “strange fruit,” or a fear that bad things happen to black people in the woods.

Many have seen the satire of Blair Underwood, stymied over and over again by the way those he encountered responded dramatically to his unassuming hike in nature. For many black people who find ourselves on a back-country trail as the only person of color for miles around, each Underwood scene, no matter how humorously staged, rings true, and exemplifies the psychological barriers we must push through in order to simply enjoy nature: the nervous or inquisitive stares, questions about what we are doing, or the overly enthusiastic embrace that can leave us feeling like a rare, identified species discovered in the wild.

So I partnered with an organization I respect tremendously to bring youth and their families by bus from the local community to come out for a day of play in nature. Leading up to the event, we deliberately reached out to families who live in poorer communities within a city (like many) divided geographically and socially by class, with many never venturing beyond the ten-square blocks of their own neighborhood, much less into the remote wild that looms perilously in the skyline. In the weeks before the event, we personally invited people at local community meetings, and early-childhood development centers. We obtained the blessing of city park and recreation leadership and also made promotional materials available in a few languages. Our efforts left us feeling hopeful that the event would reflect the true diversity of the community not commonly seen in local nature.

What began as a diverse group of families exploring nature, many for the first time, was quickly shaken-up by the presence of a nearby and vocal resident, who demanded to know: “What is going on here?”

The concerned resident was visibly upset, struggling to string together words to name her distress. She mentioned that the event came to her attention because she found herself in her car, stuck behind a slowly climbing bus on her way home. She decided to follow it to see where the diesel carrier might go, what it might contain.

She followed the passengers off the bus into the public park, and along the trail leading to the narrow, curved strip of land where the event was staged. There, she found a temporary play space in an impacted clearing, with imported natural materials such as dried bamboo, palm fronds, mounds of dirt, rocks, native plant clippings, and plenty of wet mud. While surveying the new park visitors, she expressed concern about the presence of so many “non-native” species, and said she was troubled by the threat to the local ecology.

Feeling responsible, I stepped in to try to engage her in a discussion about how people can engage with nature in a variety of ways. I tried to discuss cultural relevancy and how the event was a safe, rare invitation for families to discover and begin to build a relationship with the wild spaces right in their home town. I tried to explain how the material would be removed once the play event was over. But as we talked, I saw she was not satisfied with my answers, and became more agitated and resolute. With a sinking feeling, I could see my expressed passion for connecting this community of black and brown folks to the outdoors was very misunderstood.

Without satisfaction from our conversation, the resident said that she needed to speak to someone else because I had an “attitude,” and therefore decided she was going to contact the City Council as well as a national environmental organization to protest the event. Feeling deflated, yet still hopeful for resolution, I led her to my co-organizers and colleagues (all white) who helped to reassure her of the merits of the event and clean-up plans. And I listened nearby with humility, as they were also obliged to vouch for my character.

My own feelings aside, I was actually more worried about who might be overhearing this passionate exchange, and how they might react; Would they feel unwelcomed? Would they ever return to nature again?

The resident was eventually able to calm, and I decided to get present to the gifts all around me. I observed my own giddy kids from afar building forts and fairy houses, the pride of families creating in nature for the first time, many muddy fingers and toes, and relaxed parents (relieved from always having to say “no” to play in their own neighborhoods) finally safe to say “yes.”

Yet it was heartbreaking that the concerned resident could not see past those magic moments and into the future of these youth and their families to become the conservationists our lands and their health so desperately need. She could not see that the seeds of love for self and the planet evolve from connectedness and relationship between land and people, most often through unstructured discovery and play – and that there were no invasive species that day after all.

Here are three short videos that share some of the beauty in nature experienced by all that day: