Parks Week No Game Changer
Sitting in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center last week, the iconic National Park Service ranger Shelton Johnson and I saw something that stopped our conversation in mid-sentence: a brown-skinned couple. The man wore dreadlocks, but both had their backs turned to us. We couldn’t...
No, National Parks Are Not America’s ‘Best Idea’
By Alan Spears When I was a boy, my family made annual summer pilgrimages to Gettysburg National Military Park, which ignited my lifelong passion for American history. As a high school student, I participated in my first park cleanup at Fort DuPont, a National Park...
The Centennial and Chávez
by Paul F. Chavez Four years ago this October, President Barack Obama traveled to the very small town of Keene, California, in the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains. This is the place where my father lived and labored during the last 25 years of his...
Who Belongs in the Natural World?
by Glenn Nelson In 2005, Dr. Carolyn Finney visited the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta with her father, a stoic man who grew up in the segregated South. She was startled when he grabbed her with a stricken look on his...
IMAX Film: D for (No) Diversity
The film, National Parks Adventure, aims to stir its viewers, as producer Shaun MacGillivray puts it, “to get off their couches and get outdoors.” Its destination of choice is the U.S. national parks, which are celebrating their centennial as the National Parks Service in 2016....
A Hint of Change
by Teresa Baker My most recent trip to Yosemite was eye opening. I have been on this hunt for diversity and inclusion for years now, visiting parks and reporting on how things remained the same. But this trip was different. As I stepped off the...