Audubon Helps Green a City Girl
I am by nature a city girl. I enjoy bright lights and long walks down populated concrete sidewalks while street musicians fill the air with tunes. I am from Chicago, land of blues and backyard barbecue smells, where as a child I played double-dutch near...
Nat’l Award for Environmental Reporting
For a yearlong look at workforce diversity in the National Park Service, an essay on identity, and profiles of rangers Charles Beall and Shelton Johnson, and JosΓ© GonzΓ‘lez and Latino Outdoors, Glenn Nelson has earned a national award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. The...
The Optics of Race
We have a monument to Confederate soldiers in my city, and our mayor wants it gone. I do, too. It sits in a cemetery where Bruce Lee and many of Seattleβs founding families are buried. Lakeview is even more meaningful to me because itβs where...
What If I’m Not White?
During my previous life as a sportswriter, an NBA player once made me wait for an arranged interview while he horsed around with ball boys in front of his locker. After a long spell of this, he grew bored and finally turned to me. βI...
Let’s Lay Some Words to Rest
During a recent Q&A session with a distinguished Black author and speaker, a woman from the South tripped so badly over race-based terms, she barely could spit out her danged question. β β¦ Black β¦ ah β¦ African-American β¦ ,β she sputtered β and not...
Race & Gender: Intersection at Oppression & Microaggression
Back when the Womenβs Outdoor Summit for Empowerment was morphing from idea to reality, event mastermind Teresa Baker told me that she was being asked whether race would enter into the equation. It was an understandable question because Baker is known for her organizing around...
‘Recalcitrant’ on Diversity
Green 2.0 Releases ‘Transparency Card’ on NGOs,Rebukes Oceana, Pew for Refusing to Participate The latest breakdown of the racial and ethnic composition of the top 40 non-governmental environmental organizations was delivered by Green 2.0 on Thursday with a rebuke of two leading institutions, Oceana and...
Alliance of the Oppressed
Powerful bloc in defense of monuments The Trump administration is well advised to gauge the political blowback as it contemplates an assault β disguised as a review β on the Antiquities Act, as well as two decades of amplifying diverse and inclusive stories in this...
Next 100 Letter to Trump
WASHINGTON, D.C. β The Next 100 Coalition of more than 50 civil rights, environmental justice, conservation, and community organizations on Monday sent a letter to the president expressing concern with the ambiguous guidance and lack of transparency in the Executive Order Review of Designations Under...
Women’s Outdoor Summit
Teresa Baker is a national parks junkie. She is so enamored with the units and mission of the National Park Service, she created the African American National Park Event, an annual June weekend dedicated to getting blacks and other people of color to visit. So...
Next 100 Coalition Urges Review for Missing Monuments
Note: The following is a statement from the Next 100 Coalition, of which The Trail Posse is a member. Washington, D.C. β Today, the President signed an Executive Order directing the administration to review national monuments over 100,000 acres designated after 1996 under the Antiquities...
Sluggish Start for Parks
March of last year was when the national parks started picking up momentum toward another record-smashing year for visitation. But this year is a different story, with the big units showing signs of a centennial hangover. Celebrating its 100th birthday, the National Park Service had...
