ep. 96: How to Take a Hike
Hiking has been all the rage lately. But its popularity also reveals uncomfortable truths about who gets to belong in the great outdoors. This episode, Cristen and Caroline cross paths with geographer Carolyn Finney and Outdoor Journal Tour founders Kenya and Michelle Jackson-Saulters to map out the duality of America's hiking trails as sites of racial pain as well as Black joy and healing.
Editorial note: We apologize for not taking greater care in describing the relationship between our first guest, Dr. Carolyn Finney, and the “wealthy Jewish family” who owned the estate where she grew up. In doing so, we implicitly conflated being Jewish with being white. One bit of context that Dr. Finney mentioned in our interview, but we failed to include in the story - and in retrospect should have - was how the families' respective identities forged a nuanced bond. Regardless of their vast class difference and employer-employee hierarchy, both had experienced bigotry (anti-semitism and anti-Black racism, specifically).
Thank you to listener Bev for calling us in on these points!
Love, Cristen and Caroline
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More from Carolyn Finney
Read: Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors
More from Outdoor Journal Tour
Follow Michelle: Instagram
Resources
Sources
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Brune, Michael. Pulling Down Our Monuments. Sierra Club. July 22, 2020.
Claborn, John. Civil Rights and the Environment in African-American Literature, 1895-1941. Bloomsbury Publishing. 2017.
Finney, Carolyn. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. UNC Press Books. 2014.
Foster, Mark S. In the Face of "Jim Crow": Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel and Outdoor Leisure, 1890-1945. The Journal of African-American History. Vol. 84, No. 2. Spring 1999.
Golash-Boza, Tanya et al. Why America’s National Parks Are So White. Al Jazeera. July 23, 2015.
Honey, Minda. Woman of Color in Wide Open Spaces. Longreads. March 29, 2017.
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Kearney, Ryan. White People Love Hiking. Minorities Don’t. Here’s Why. New Republic. Sept 6, 2013.
Kormann, Carolyn. Corina Newsome and the Black Birders Movement. New Yorker. June 22, 2020.
Lange, Maggie. Is Hiking the Only Summer Activity That’s Basically Still the Same? The Cut. July 3, 2020.
Machado, Amanda E. Closing the adventure gap: Women of color are reshaping the outdoors travel industry. Roadtrippers. March 7, 2019.
McGowen, Ayesha. How We Can Build an Anti-Racist Outdoor Industry. Outside. July 6, 2020.
Meraji, Shereen Marisol. Outdoor Afro: Busting Stereotypes That Black People Don't Hike or Camp. Code Switch. July 12, 2015.
Mills, James Edward. The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoors. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2014.
Outdoor Industry Association. We Have Work To Do. We Are Committed. June 3, 2020.
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Vestal, Lornett. The Unbearable Whiteness of Hiking and How to Solve It. Sierra Club. Dec. 7 2016.
Askew, Reyna and Walls, Margaret A. Diversity in the Great Outdoors: Is Everyone Welcome in America’s Parks and Public Lands? Resources. May 24, 2019.
