Category: Black Excellence

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

As a racial justice activist, NBA great Bill Russell was a legend off the court

Bill Russell, who has died at the age of 88, was more than just a basketball superstar and world-class athlete. As a dedicated human rights activist, Russell fought against racial inequality both in and out of professional sports.

In February 2011, Barack Obama presented Russell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House. He told those in attendance about Russell’s record 11 NBA titles, more than any player in history. All of the championships were playing for the Boston Celtics.

However, the president was more impressed by Russell’s life outside of his athletic accomplishments: marching with Martin Luther King Jr.; standing up for Muhammad Ali; and boycotting a game in Kentucky after his Black teammates were refused service in a coffee shop.

“He endured insults and vandalism, but he kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players, and made possible the success of so many who would follow,” Obama said in 2011. “And I hope that one day, in the streets of Boston, children will look up at a statue built not only to Bill Russell the player, but Bill Russell the man.”

The first game boycott over civil rights

In October 1961, the Boston Celtics were in Lexington, Ky., for a pre-season exhibition game. Before the game, Sam Jones and Tom Sanders, two Black members of the Boston team, were refused service when they tried to grab a bite to eat from the hotel’s café.

According to Mark C. Bodanza’s biography of Sam Jones, Ten Times a Champion, Jones and Sanders walked away humiliated and angry. The two bumped into Russell and K.C. Jones on the way back to their hotel rooms and explained what had happened in the café.

The four men brought the news to Celtics Coach Red Auerbach, who rang the hotel management about the incident. Though the players were eventually given permission to eat at the hotel, they wanted nothing to do with the establishment and chose to fly home.

It was the first boycotting of a game over a civil rights protest, according to the Basketball Network. When the players landed back in Boston, they were welcomed by a predominantly white crowd that supported their decision.

Russell told reporters the following day, per Bodanza: “We’ve got to show our disapproval of this kind of treatment or else the status quo will prevail. We have the same rights and privileges as anyone else and deserve to be treated accordingly. I hope we never have to go through this abuse again. But if it happens, we won’t hesitate to take the same action again.”

Almost 60 years later, Russell referenced the incident as he applauded another NBA team for speaking out. In August 2020, players on the Milwaukee Bucks chose not to take the court in a playoff game against Orlando after police shot a Black man in Wisconsin.

“In [1961] I walked out if an exhibition game much like the [NBA] players did yesterday,” Russell wrote. “I am one of the few people that knows what it felt like to make such an important decision.”

Many of Russell’s most notable actions were during the 1960s

Russell was at the 1963 March on Washington, sitting nearby King as he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Another notable action came when Russell spoke to students in support of a one-day Black student boycott of Boston’s public schools to protest segregation that same year. He was involved in local issues in Boston, including being involved in planning the graduation and speaking to graduates at a predominantly Black high school in 1966.

After Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963, Russell traveled to Mississippi to work with Evers’ brother to open an integrated basketball camp.

In 1967, when boxing legend Muhammad Ali refused to fight in America’s war in Vietnam, Russell joined other prominent Black figures gathering in Cleveland to meet with Ali. Russell supported Ali’s decision to go to prison instead of denouncing his beliefs surrounding civil rights and religious freedom.

Later in life, he continued speaking out.

In 2017, he posted a photo of himself – wearing his Presidential Medal of Freedom – taking a knee in a sign of solidarity with protesters within the NFL.

“Proud to take a knee, and to stand tall against social injustice,” Russell wrote.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/01/1114795613/racial-justice-pioneer-nba-bill-russell

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ dies at 89

Actress and singer Nichelle Nichols, best known as Star Trek‘s communications officer Lieutenant Uhura, died Saturday night in Silver City, New Mexico. She was 89 years old.

“I regret to inform you that a great light in the firmament no longer shines for us as it has for so many years,” her son Kyle Johnson wrote on the website Uhura.com. “Her light, however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration.”

Nichols was one of the first Black women featured in a major television series, and her role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original TV series was groundbreaking: an African American woman whose name came from Uhuru, the Swahili word for “freedom.”

“Here I was projecting in the 23rd century what should have been quite simple,” Nichols told NPR in 2011. “We’re on a starship. I was head communications officer. Fourth in command on a starship. They didn’t see this as being, oh, it doesn’t happen til the 23rd century. Young people and adults saw it as now.”

In 1968, Nichols made headlines when Uhura shared an intimate kiss with Captain James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner) in an episode called “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Their interracial kiss on the lips was revolutionary, one of the first such moments on TV. https://www.youtube.com/embed/lThvEsP5-9Y?rel=0

Nichelle Nichols shared one of the first interracial kisses in TV history with William Shatner. YouTube

Nichols was born Grace Dell Nichols in a Chicago suburb where her father was the mayor. She grew up singing and dancing, aspiring to star in musical theater. She got her first break in the 1961 musical Kicks and Co., a thinly veiled satire of Playboy magazine. She was the star of the Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones, and in New York performed in Porgy and Bess.

‘To me, the highlight and the epitome of my life as a singer and actor and a dancer/choreographer was to star on Broadway,” she told NPR in 2011, adding that as her popularity on Star Trek grew, she was beginning to get other offers. “I decided I was going to leave, go to New York and make my way on the Broadway stage.”

Nichols said she went to Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, and announced she was quitting. “He was very upset about it. And he said, take the weekend and think about what I am trying to achieve here in this show. You’re an integral part and very important to it.”

So that weekend, she went to an NAACP fundraiser in Beverly Hills and was asked to meet a man who said he was her number one fan: Martin Luther King, Jr.

“He complimented me on the manner in which I’d created the character. I thanked him, and I think I said something like, ‘Dr. King, I wish I could be out there marching with you.’ He said, ‘no, no, no. No, you don’t understand. We don’t need you … to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for.’ So, I said to him, ‘thank you so much. And I’m going to miss my co-stars.'”

“His face got very, very serious,” she recalled. “And he said, ‘what are you talking about?’ And I said, ‘well, I told Gene just yesterday that I’m going to leave the show after the first year because I’ve been offered… And he stopped me and said: ‘You cannot do that.’ I was stunned. He said, ‘don’t you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen. He says, do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch.’ I was speechless.”

Nichols returned to the series, which lasted until 1969. She also reprised her famous role in six subsequent feature films, including Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where Uhura was promoted to commander.

For years, Nichols also helped diversify the real-life space program, helping to recruit astronauts Sally Ride, Judith Resnik, Guion Bluford, and others. And she had her own science foundation, Women in Motion.

“Many actors become stars, but few stars can move a nation,” tweeted actress Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman on TV in the 1970s. “Nichelle Nichols showed us the extraordinary power of Black women and paved the way for a better future for all women in media. Thank you, Nichelle. We will miss you.”

George Takei, who costarred on Star Trek as helmsman Hikaru Sulu tweeted: “I shall have more to say about the trailblazing, incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise,” her wrote. “For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend.”

He also posted a photo of his longtime friend, both of them flashing the Vulcan greeting, and these words: “We lived long and prospered together.”

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/31/1114792935/nichelle-nichols-dies-star-trek

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

NOTE ON MY NAME

I have an ongoing practice of spelling my name JJJJJerome Ellis in certain circumstances. I do this because the word I stutter on most frequently is my name. You can choose which spelling you prefer.

JJJJJerome Ellis is a blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist. He prays, reads, gardens, cycles, wanders, and plays. Through music, literature, performance, and video he researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. Born in 1989 to Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants, he grew up and lives by a heron rookery in Virginia Beach, USA.

His diverse body of work includes: contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure historical archives. 

JJJJJerome collaborates with James Harrison Monaco as James & Jerome. Their recent work explores themes of border crossing and translation through music-driven narratives. They have received commissions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Ars Nova.

https://jjjjjerome.com/about

Ellis has also been named a 2022 Disability Futures Fellow:

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/27/1113643836/fellowship-supports-disabled-artists

More:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/10/artist-and-stutterer-jjjjjerome-ellis-so-much-pain-comes-from-not-feeling-fully-human

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

This story is part of KQED’s series, “Sacrifice Zones: Bay Area Shoreline Communities Reimagining Their Homes in the Face of the Climate Emergency.” The project looks at communities of color facing the worst of rising seas and fighting to thrive. Read more of KQED’s reparations coverage.

Arieann Harrison accepted her calling at her mother’s funeral, sitting in St. John Missionary Baptist Church in the San Francisco shoreline community of Bayview-Hunters Point.

“You find out a lot about yourself at a funeral,” said Harrison. Her mother, Marie Harrison, passed away in 2019 at 71 from lung disease. Harrison says her mom believed the illness was tied to pollution from a nearby shipyard, where she once worked and lived close to.

At St. John’s, person after person shared reasons why they valued Harrison’s mother.

She organized, marched and protested for decades, pushing for a shipyard cleanup — even chaining herself to the fence outside the site. Marie Harrison famously said to neighbors, officials and anyone who would listen, “We’ll never surrender.”

Harrison realized it was time to stand on her mother’s shoulders, taking on her legacy of advocacy.

“What I learned in that moment is that love is an action word,” she said. She’s since launched the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, whose focus is environmental justice. ‘We’re just one natural disaster away from something we can never come back from. This is not a game.’Arieann Harrison, Marie Harrison Community Foundation

The shipyard is now a Superfund site, one of the country’s most polluted places. The 866-acre area is a jigsaw slab of concrete docking bays and abandoned buildings jutting out of the southeast shoreline of San Francisco. The site butts up against the community of Bayview-Hunters Point, where more than 35,000 people live.

Marie Harrison fought for a cleanup. Her daughter’s struggle is arguably more difficult, as climate change and sea level rise threaten to flood the area. Scientists are increasingly sounding the alarm about rising bay water pushing freshwater up from belowground, uncorking chemicals from the shipyard before spilling into homes and businesses.

“We’re just one natural disaster away from something we can never come back from,” said Harrison, who lives in the neighborhood and works helping military veterans and unhoused people find housing and recovery programs in San Francisco. “This is not a game.”

Three years after her mother’s death, Harrison, who is in her mid-50s, is pressing officials for the strongest possible cleanup of the site to ensure the community isn’t exposed to toxic waste. She’s helping lead an effort to document how living near the Superfund site may have exposed residents — many of whom are people of color — to toxics, by testing for contaminants in their bodies.

People of color, all around the bay and the globe, are disproportionately victimized by the effects of climate change. Harrison is one of the many Black women who are increasingly focused on climate justice and are leading the modern environmental movement.

“Climate justice is a real thing. Sea level rise is real,” she said. “This is the opportunity to stand up and do the right thing by the people.”

Her advocacy also now includes a call for reparations for descendants of enslaved people, saying the tendrils of slavery are still very alive today in this historically Black neighborhood. Racist housing policies siloed Black and brown people in this part of San Francisco, where she says they were exposed to contaminants from the Superfund site; repair is needed.

‘The worst contaminants you can imagine’

Bayview-Hunters Point Hazardous Sites and 2100 Sea Level Rise

Use your mouse to move different directions on the map. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow at the top right of the legend to remove it. Areas marked by triangles show the impact of rising seas and groundwater together, while circles show groundwater impacts only. Icons are sized by population within 1 km. Sources: Climate Central, UCLA, UC Berkeley, USGS.

https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/ad710fe6-e00c-4eab-85e6-06e8f9771982/embed

In California, communities of color are five times more likely than the general population to live within a half mile of polluted places like San Francisco’s shipyard, according to an analysis by environmental health scientists from UCLA and UC Berkeley.

The researchers predict these same spots could flood from rising seas in the coming decades; they launched a statewide mapping project last year called Toxic Tides, to identify hazardous places along the state’s shoreline. They’ve studied a less-understood threat: Rising seas flood over the top of the land and also push in underneath, propelling any buried contamination toward the surface. Groundwater could rise as far as 3 miles inland from the edge of San Francisco Bay.

Researchers identified as many as 900 power plants, cleanup sites, refineries and other places in California that could experience flooding from sea level rise or groundwater spreading into neighborhoods — sometimes both.

California’s latest guidance report on sea level rise says bay waters may rise more than 10 feet by the end of the century and nearly 3 feet by 2050 in the most extreme scenarios. The leading cause of climate change is humans burning fossil fuels.

The Hunters Point Superfund site is one of those hazardous sites. In the middle of the last century, the U.S. Navy decontaminated ships after atomic bomb tests and established the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at the shipyard. This process contaminated the soil with radionuclides, heavy metals and petroleum fuels, among other toxic compounds.

Bay Area scientists say that before rising tides flood aboveground, bay waters will press inward under the surface of the land, pushing up the groundwater, spreading buried contamination. ‘Our health risks within the community are very deep. It goes way back. We know what time it is when it comes to Hunters Point.’Lonnie Mason, Bayview-Hunters Point resident

“The Hunters Point Superfund site is expected to experience monthly flooding by the end of the century,” said UCLA’s Lara Cushing, who created the mapping project with UC Berkeley’s Rachel Morello-Frosch.

The Superfund site is partially cleaned up. With the oversight of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Navy is preparing for the eventual development of research institutions, parks and thousands of homes.

But Morello-Frosch says any cleanup that caps toxic contamination likely won’t be good enough as the bay presses groundwater upward.

“If you start having groundwater encroachment, those caps of legacy sites can be breached,” she noted. “So it can come up, and it can move to different areas.”

Cole Burchiel, a field investigator for the environmental watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper, is worried that rising groundwater levels will harm human and aquatic life.

“We’re dealing with some of the worst contaminants you can imagine — lead, arsenic, radioactive isotopes,” he said. “They will infiltrate existing infrastructure. We’re talking sewer lines, water supply lines — and that has a direct impact on people’s homes.”

‘We’re tired of begging for our lives’

Every five years the Navy examines progress on the shipyard’s cleanup. The last study, completed in 2020, said they “have adequately addressed all exposure pathways that could result in unacceptable risks.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office denied multiple requests for an interview for this story. The city said in an emailed statement that it’s conducting a study with Bay Area climate scientists on how sea level rise will affect groundwater, and they’re seeking funding to study how sea level rise could affect known contaminated sites.

A May report released by the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury reprimands city and Navy officials, saying they have not accounted for the serious risk that rising groundwater could have here.

“Aside from some glimmers of awareness at regulatory agencies, groundwater rise has not yet been meaningfully considered in the cleanup at the Hunters Point Shipyard,” the grand jury wrote. ‘What’s actually at stake here are people’s lives. We need to make sure that people are not at the risk of death, if we really say that their lives matter.’Maya Carrasquillo, UC Berkeley

San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose district includes Bayview-Hunters Point, requested a hearing on the jury report. But his office declined repeated requests for an interview. In an emailed statement, he said he is aware of the longstanding issue of radioactive contamination and is working with all the agencies involved in the cleanup.

But he acknowledged that “the effect of sea level rise and groundwater rise has not been studied” for the Hunters Point Superfund site.

Harrison organized a June rally in front of City Hall to highlight the findings. Wearing a bright purple shirt with “CAN WE LIVE” printed on the front and speaking into a megaphone, she said the city needs to prepare Bayview-Hunters Point for the effects of sea level rise.

“I want to invite our mayor, who we love, to show us that she loves us back,” she said.

She said reparations are necessary to create an equitable future for Bayview-Hunters Point and its Black and brown residents who will be disproportionately harmed by climate change.

Government agencies redlined Black people into the neighborhood now dominated by polluting industries. As a result, residents live near toxic sites and face potentially deadly impacts from climate change.

“We’re tired of begging for our lives,” Harrison told KQED. “I holla for reparations because that’s paying for crimes against humanity. You can bet your bottom dollar we’re gonna need long-term care.”

California’s task force on reparations is deep in a conversation on how to repair the centuries of oppression endured by descendants of the enslaved on a statewide level. San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee is exploring how the city can repair the harm its discriminatory policies have caused to Black homeownership, access to schools and availability of health care.

Bayview-Hunters Point residents regularly attend the meetings of San Francisco’s advisory committee to express their concerns. Lonnie Mason said at a January session that the city is not giving enough attention to the historically Black area of San Francisco. He was born and raised in the neighborhood.

“Our health risks within the community are very deep,” he said. “It goes way back. We know what time it is when it comes to Hunters Point.”

Reparations mean preparing for sea level rise

For longtime Bayview-Hunters Point residents like Tonia Randell, city leaders have taken way too long to demonstrate they value people of color in this neighborhood, one of the most polluted parts of San Francisco, according to a state environmental analysis.

“We have all the utilities here,” she said, noting the neighborhood is home to Recology; the city’s sewage treatment plant; and other waste facilities. “We still have the garbage dump here. Why is it all in our area? Because they don’t value us.”

UC Berkeley professor Maya Carrasquillo says it’s not unusual for Black people to feel left out of plans to improve residents’ lives, even if they are represented by Black city officials. Carrasquillo, who identifies racially as a Black American and ethnically as an Afro-Latina, is a civil and environmental engineering professor focused on environmental justice.

She says Black people in power would argue they advocate for all Black residents, but decisions made by those in control often center communities of affluence.

“There is still a distinct difference of how we value Black and brown lives across class barriers,” she said. “When we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ it is all Black lives.”

Carrasquillo says Bayview-Hunters Point deserves the same kind of investment that wealthy neighborhoods of San Francisco receive. If that doesn’t happen, lower-income people of color will suffer disproportionately as the world warms and the bay rises. She says San Francisco and other cities should invite the people who will be the most harmed by rising tides to decide their own future by including them in every aspect of climate adaptation plans. That is an act of reparation.

“What’s actually at stake here are people’s lives,” she added. “We need to make sure that people are not at the risk of death, if we really say that their lives matter.”

‘That set my hair on fire’

To seize the attention of city leaders, residents are documenting their health conditions.

A map of Bayview-Hunters Point lies on the wood desk in Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai’s office. It’s filled with red, blue, black, yellow and white pushpins — they look like ants piled up on a piece of food. Each pin represents a person whom she tested and found to have high levels of a toxic chemical in their body at that time.

“[Toxic chemicals] have no role in the human body, and there is no justification for any of them,” she said.

In 2018, the state announced that a radioactive object was found near new condos in the community in an area the city and numerous government agencies said was cleaned up. For Porter Sumchai, that was the last straw.

In 2019, she began testing residents who volunteered to have their urine examined for toxic contaminants. The 70-year-old physician is the founder and medical director of the Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation.

She’s now tested and retested more than 100 residents for toxic elements like lead, mercury and arsenic, and for elevated levels of natural elements that people need, like iron and zinc. Porter Sumchai said she recently tested a woman in her 40s and found uranium at dangerously high levels.

“That set my hair on fire,” she said. “I had never seen anything like that.”

Harrison was tested in 2021. Porter Sumchai found cadmium, copper, manganese and other contaminants in her body at levels she described as “very dangerous.” The contaminants could cause damage to the brain, heart, kidney, liver and lungs.

“I am retaining fluid, have muscle tightness, tingling in my feet and my hair is falling out of my head like a cancer patient,” she said, pointing to the test results on her office computer. “It doesn’t look like it because my wig is really cute.”

On that day she wore long, black braids.

Officials with the San Francisco Department of Public Health told KQED in an emailed statement that the agency is “committed to protecting and promoting the health of those in the Bayview-Hunters Point” neighborhood, but wouldn’t comment directly on Porter Sumchai’s testing, saying the agency did not have a “subject matter expert.” They deferred comment to state health officials.

The California Department of Public Health told KQED in an email that it is “aware” of the community testing, but “has not been directly provided any test results from those samples.”

The city conducted a community health survey in 2006 that found “cancer is a major cause of years of life lost in Bayview Hunters Point,” and “African-American women and men have the highest mortality rates of any other racial/ethnic group for several major cancers.” But the city did not look at whether buried toxic contamination at the shipyard contributed to any health problems.

Dr. Timur Durrani, a UCSF physician who is not involved with Porter Sumchai’s effort, said the tests are cause for a wider-scale survey.

Durrani, who provides care for acutely poisoned patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, cautioned that to understand the full extent of the problem, a comprehensive evaluation of the exposure and the community is needed.

“What it sounds like is the community wants to be heard,” he said.

Porter Sumchai submits her data on cancers and toxic contamination to the California Cancer Registry. She is compiling her own — the Hunters Point Community Toxic Registry — and hopes to gather enough evidence documenting a relationship between illness and toxic exposure to use in a structured legal settlement.

“The more evidence we collect, the more pins we place in this map,” she said. “I do think, ultimately, there is going to be a recovery for this community. It’s just in the stars.”

But any recovery takes hard work. Porter Sumchai and Harrison’s work is practical, methodical and deliberate. Climate change adds extreme urgency to their effort.

At the June protest on the steps of City Hall, Harrison invited Porter Sumchai to speak on her findings. Rallying the crowd, she called her “a woman who has been fighting since Day One. I like to call her my second mother.”

“People in Bayview-Hunters Point are being treated like canaries in the coal mine for an impending catastrophe that will impact the entire city,” Porter Sumchai said.

Bayview-Hunters Point residents are facing a life-or-death crisis, she said, but she promised to fight, even if city leaders don’t act.

Then she quoted Marie Harrison.

“We’ll never surrender,” she said.

KQED’s Annelise Finney contributed reporting to this story. 

https://www.kqed.org/science/1979614/for-these-black-bayview-hunters-point-residents-reparations-include-safeguarding-against-rising-toxic-contamination

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

The Great Ones is a celebration of humans we admire — and an exploration of why they cook, not just how. Sherród Faulks has been cooking all his life, and in 2019, he discovered another passion: pottery. In 2020, Sherród launched his own pottery business, DEEP BLACK, with an emphasis on creating luxurious yet accessible products as well as uplifting artisans of color. We teamed up with Sherród to create a spoon rest and joined him in his kitchen to talk all about his journey to DEEP BLACK.

To say that I’m a cooking person is a major understatement. I started cooking when I was 14, about 20 years ago. I took cooking classes during school, took catering in school, and in college I cooked professionally to put myself through school. I looked up to many of the cooks in my family; my dad is one of the major cooks in my family. My aunt Ella Mae was another main cook in the family. I loved how at holidays the old folks would just sit back and watch. I would feed off of her energy and admire how she was able to bring together the whole family. I thought, I want to be able to do this for the important people in my life.

After college, cooking fell to the wayside, but a few years later my friend and I came up with this idea to create a food media company before that was really a thing, in 2014. It’s called Slice & Torte. That’s when food became an activity for me. Slice and Torte was the birth of my food-blogging career. 

Also, I was a very homosexual child, so Martha Stewart was on 24/7. I loved that kind of lifestyle of cocktail parties and dinner parties, even though I was 14. I wanted to be that person — and I am, and I love it.

Any time I have a dinner party I always try to push the envelope. I like to push people outside of their comfort zone. Whenever I cook for other people I am cooking for myself. I consider other people’s tastes, but I think I have good taste and want other people to try new things. I want to pique people’s curiosity. I think dining should be fun. What the hell is the point of having friends and family over if you’re not going to have fun?

I think dining should be fun. What the hell is the point of having friends and family over if you’re not going to have fun?

My family is very Southern and old-school. But I did not grow up cooking soul food. My first-ever cookbook was from my aunt, and it was on pan-Asian cuisine. I cooked that book cover to cover. My mom was sick of everything smelling like fish sauce! I was in high school; I did not have a life. I just went to Asian grocery stores and kept cooking. But that book gave me fundamentals. Today I especially love to cook Korean food, and Japanese food has always been very close to my heart.

I left Virginia when I was 16, and I just came back. For the very first Mother’s Day, I made this marinated chicken and cucumber salad with gochugaru and kimbap. Everyone loved it. At first everyone was eyeing the food like, I don’t know about that … Is it spicy? But those plates were clean, honey!

Cooking is exhilarating every time. When I started it was kind of scary, and it felt complex. As I ascended in my cooking career, though, I got into molecular gastronomy, and I got into classic French cuisine. The dishes kept getting more complex. Then once I got divorced I said, “Oh, I don’t need to cook no more.” For a while, I just kind of unclenched and realized I could just make easy food — just simple and just fun. I did not cook for a year, and then I got my mojo back.

Cooking is exhilarating every time.

I feel in control, and I feel powerful in the kitchen. I’ve always said that cooking is the one and only form of magic on this planet. You can stop time. I can put peaches in a jar, and a year later they will still be good. I can put you back in your childhood, or I can make you travel forward. I can heal your body with my food. It’s all power. It’s pure alchemy.

I’ve always said that cooking is the one and only form of magic on this planet. You can stop time.

When I got divorced I was like, Oh f–k it, I’m doing everything! I traveled, and then I bought the Dutchess in Mustard. It was the first thing I bought that made me feel like I had my power back. It was like saying, “Here is something you’ve been denied … now have fun with it.” The other thing was ceramics. I always wanted to take a class, and the instant I sat down, I was like, Oh, got it got it got it. It was an instant connection, and it was so obvious that that was what I wanted to do.

I would go into the studio every day for six to seven hours at a time and just practice. At the end of 2019 I knew I wanted to do ceramics professionally. In about three months I had the business model, the financial plan, shipping, visuals — I got it together, honey!

I launched in March 2020, but sales didn’t really pick up until the summer. George Floyd was killed, and the whole nation erupted. Within the art community, especially, it hit hard. It seemed like all of the Black artists were like, “You know what? This ain’t working.”

I wrote a post about how I feel in these spaces and what people can actually do instead of giving me stupid platitudes, and it went kind of viral, and I got a lot of support and traction out of it. It showed me that I wasn’t alone and there were a lot of artists who would support me if I would just sink into this community.

I felt like I was getting so much love and support. I wanted to do something good with it, and I donated a solid 40% of what I made. I sunk in with the community and customers and other companies, and they have buoyed me in return.

I am obsessed with longevity. I hope that people will buy my pieces and think, That is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen — I have to have it in my home! My hope is they keep it forever and their kids pass it on to their kids, or the pieces go to a new home. I want my pieces to last forever and for people to love them.

I’m so detailed, so this spoon rest was designed with a capital D! From the curvature of the base to the shoulder to the way the glaze is applied, every bit of it is intentional. That’s me as a designer. I like to think about how you’ll place the spoon on the rest, how the juices will drip off the spoon, and how they will rest in that dish. I think what we ended up with … these glazes sing. There are certain colors that make me feel joyful, electric, or like the sun. So I was so happy with how these came out. The blue hue of this spoon rest was a complete and total accident. I was just messing around with this blue, and now I can’t get rid of it. This was truly a custom collaboration.

My partner just moved in with me, and in my mind I had this idea that I’d be making roast chicken every Sunday and we’d be sipping cocktails with the hydrangeas in the background. In reality, we are very busy … Still, I wanted to make a recipe that spoke to the kind of home I wanted to build. The recipe I came up with and that I cooked today is this garlic roast chicken and herb sauce. I used King Sear, and I love it because it’s enormous, which is perfect for this! You need that space for all the fat to come out. I also snuck in Holy Sheet to roast some vegetables, and, of course, the spoon rest.

What I love about this dish is that everything about it is incorrect. It goes against all conventional classical cooking rules. You use a garlic press to press the garlic. You have to almost burn the garlic. It goes directly onto a very hot pan. The chicken is pressed within an inch of its life. The sauce is just the drippings from the pan with herbs. This chicken is out-of-this-world good, and it’s easy. It’s deeply chicken-y. And you can serve it for two, for a dinner party, or, to be honest, you can just cook it for yourself. Not a lot of recipes work like that. This is a crown jewel in my collection of recipes.

https://greatjonesgoods.com/blogs/great-ones/sherrod-faulks-cooks-to-push-the-envelope

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

I am currently an assistant professor at the University of Indianapolis. I teach graduate courses in psychological assessment, research methods, and couples/family therapy.

I completed my postdoctoral fellowship with Harvard Medical School, working out of Cambridge Hospital’s Child & Adolescent Inpatient Units. While there, I received advanced training in assessment, treatment, and transition planning for children and adolescents within the context of an intensive assessment unit.

I completed my predoctoral internship in clinical psychology at the Indiana University School of Medicine where I received advanced clinical training in a broad spectrum of areas while rotating through various departments. All of my graduate school work was completed at the University of Tennessee where my doctorate degree (Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology) was conferred in December/2014.

Largely concentrated on adolescents & emerging adults, my research interests generally surround topics such as: technology, psychosocial developmental tasks, online self-presentation, attachment quality, and online relationship dynamics. Specifically, I’m interested in understanding how technology and/or social connectivity through various media outlets (e.g. – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Xbox Live, etc.) may impact human behavior, psychosocial development, and psychological health. I am also interested in studying these topics within the SMI &/or non-college student population.

Overall, my professional areas of interest include: Teaching, Practice, and Research. As a generalist, I enjoyed seeing patients in child, adolescent, emerging adult, and adult age ranges for both diagnostic assessment & traditional psychotherapy throughout my training. My theoretical orientation is eclectic and integrative, drawing from psychodynamic, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives. As a psychology professor, I try to meld my passion for teaching & mentoring with my appreciation of clinical material and research.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/slgray?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Aaron McGruder was born on May 29, 1974, in Chicago, Illinois. He is a cartoonist best known for writing and drawing The Boondocks, a Universal Press Syndicate comic strip about two young African American brothers from inner-city Chicago now living with their grandfather in a sedate suburb.

McGruder graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in African American Studies. The Boondocks debuted in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback, in late 1997. He recently worked as a screenwriter in the final treatment of the upcoming film Red Tails. With George Lucas as executive producer, the story is based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American combat pilots during World War II. McGruder currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

The comic strip is about African-American children who come from the city into the suburbs. The creator says it’s “thematically autobiographical” because it’s inspired by real people and talks about true things

.

Q: How did The Boondocks start and what happened to it before its debut in the Source?
A few years ago a young and somewhat inept illustrator, Aaron McGruder, dissatisfied with both college and the comic book world began playing with the idea of creating a “black” comic strip – inspired by his love of hip hop and saturated with political and racial satire. My first opportunity to debut this bizarre creation to the world came in February 1996 on The Hitlist Online.

Considering I was expecting everything from Klan hatemail to chastisement on my lack of drawing ability, I was pleased with the response and the more than 100 fan emails I received (only one person told me I was wack). Several months later, on December 3rd of the same year, a bolder, more confident, and slightly less inept cartoonist made the bold foray into daily print media. The Diamondback – the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland – debuted the strip to their roughly 20,000 readers with rave reviews. The strip managed to run for about two months before that newspaper jerked me and forced me to take my strip elsewhere. But such is life…

Anyway, that handful of you out there who have become fans of the strip know that if The Boondocks is anything – it’s inconsistent. I have to take personal responsibility for the shameful “here today, gone tomorrow” appearances of the strip over the years. Finishing school, having a life, making moves, and not getting paid for any of this often meant that drawing and writing The Boondocks took a backseat to everything else. I know there were several promises made about weekly and even daily strips online, and to all those who were holding their breath, well…please rest in peace and I’m very sorry. For everyone else, though, The Boondocks is about to be in your face very often and in a very big way.

Q: Is there a book or comic book available?
A: No. There will be Boondocks books, but I don’t foresee one being released for AT LEAST a year.

Q: Will the strip be in (insert local newspaper here)?
A: The strip doesn’t go up for sale to newspapers until September, so I won’t know until right before the strip debuts in the 3rd week of November which papers it’ll be in. If you want to see the strip in your local paper – just write the paper and let them know. It’ll make a difference, believe me.

Q: WHERE’S THE GEAR????!!!!!
A: There is currently no Boondocks clothing available anywhere (if you have seen any let me know ’cause its bootlegged). It will be coming soon though – hopefully by the end of the summmer and available first and foremost through this website! So keep checking with us.

Q: Why do you make fun of Puffy so much?
A: ’Cause he’s Puffy.

Q: Can you email me pictures (of the characters, nobody wants pictures of me)?
A: I generally don’t do this, because my modem is so slow it wouldn’t be a very nice picture. However, one of the things we’re trying to make available over the site will be posters and other character reproductions – many will be exclusive to this site.

Q: What’s the status on the television show?
A: It’s moving forward, slowly but steadily. We have an animation studio in our corner, and we’ll be talking with networks this summer. Fortunately, we have one of the best directors in the biz on our team, Reginald Hudlin – so we can’t go wrong!!

https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Aaron+McGruder

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

It isn’t very often that I get to meet other paddlers of color.  I have been following Rashid on social media for a while but last race season I finally had a chance to meet Rashid. We both competed in the “Greatest Show in Sports”, a local name for the the Green River Narrows Race. Held just outside Saluda, NC the race attracts class V kayakers from around the region and world. They test themselves against the rivers power and against the friends and family they paddle with. Just two hours from Charlotte the river, and the race, aren’t too far a drive for the Charlotte native who has completed two Green Races in his six years of kayaking.  

Rashid grew up recreating in North Carolina and the surrounding areas. He has been kayaking  whitewater since 2012 after starting to work at the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Since then he has become a regular face in the crowd of boaters who frequent the renowned classic grade V section of  the Green River, the Green River Narrows, as well as surrounding rivers. After talking for a few months about paddling and boating plans I asked if he would be willing to speak about his experiences as an outdoorsman and paddler of color.

 

So, lets start with your name and where you’re from.
 

My name is Rashid Clifton and I was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. I work as a GIS analyst for ESRI. I love to be outside and I like whitewater kayaking. I’m just a guy who loves the outdoors. Sometimes I feel a little uncertain about the direction of life overall, but the things that keep me grounded are what I know about myself. I love to be outside. I love to go camping, hike with my dog, and to breathe in the fresh air. Whether that’s walking in the neighborhood or traveling to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the outdoors is where I feel certain about things.
 

What is important to you about the outdoors?

The grounding aspect and the connection with being outside or traveling. The uncertainty can be unnerving in other areas of life whereas I feel like the outdoors are my constant.

How old are you?

I’m 24 now.

Feel a quarter life crisis coming on?

[laughs] Oh dude I think I’ve already hit it!

What has been that crisis?

Basically, elaborating on the uncertainty and such. I feel a little unsatisfied in the direction of my work. I feel I’m not contributing, I’m just working to pay bills. I’m not truly happy behind the desk but at the same time I’m deeply concerned with environmental issues that are occurring now and the work I’m doing affects that in a good way. I feel I need to go out and do what I can but sometimes it feels a little helpless.

What exactly feels helpless?

Like trying to find the balance between the urge to be outdoors and the reality of driving everywhere. I might drive to the mountains every weekend. That’s 100 miles there and 100 miles back. That’s worse when I’m solo driving because like surfing but can’t always get a carpool. It’s this burden on my shoulders. I’m trying to figure that out.

I call that specific crisis the kayaker’s paradox. We drive long distances in gas inefficient cars in order that paddle plastic down these pristine rivers we fight to protect. We consume our share of petroleum products.

Totally.

I get the uncertainty and its a weird time to be alive watching the last 10-15 years of environmental policy and reality occur. We’ve watched our weather patterns change in real human time not geologic time. How has it been out east?

Definitely a bit of the same. I remember growing up that the weather was predictable. It would be hot and humid in summer and cold in the winter (at least in Charlotte). The past few summers have been wild with drought and some large wildfires for the eastern side of the state up near Nantahala and Pisgah areas. This year it’s just been raining so heavy. Some of the heaviest rains from spring into the summer. Creeks that don’t usually run in summer have been hovering at boatable levels all summer.

Yeah, I heard there were natural flow Green laps!

Its been much higher than usual at this time of year: 8-10 inches instead of 5-6 inches with a few 200% laps.

Oh man, tangent but I’m excited for Green Race this year. I want to see it at 200%. But that is a deep tangent.

Haha! Yeah, I could talk about the 200% Green laps all day.

I’m still intimidated by Gorilla.

Yeah it is [laughs]. You get comfortable running but in the back of your head you still feel a little nervous coming through the notch, because you’re never really in total control.

Right?! Ok back on track. What piqued your interest in the outdoors?

I grew up skateboarding for a long while. Then when I was about 10 or 12 my family went to the beach on vacation. I thought to myself, “Oh surfing is cool! I want to be in the water.” My dad rented some boards and I caught a few waves. It was the greatest thing in the world.

How did you keep up with surfing while living in Charlotte?

Even though I lived about four hours from the nearest ocean we were super committed to surfing. My dad would drive me out, waking up at 4 am so I could catch some waves, and then drive back the same day. Once I got my driver’s license I would go immediately after my last class got out so long as I had time and the forecast was good.

What made you switch from surfing to whitewater kayaking?

Surfing was just so out of the way that over time kayaking made more sense. The good wave days of surfing were few and far between. I’d have weeks were I’d have school or work and couldn’t make it out on the good days or there weren’t any good days to begin with. So it was pretty inaccessible and a huge commitment even though that’s all I wanted to do. I would just get bummed when I couldn’t go. I was in the angsty teenager phase in that way.

That aspect of surfing always bummed me out too, the waiting for prime weather and then having work or school.  But you’ve got to earn your turns.

Yeah, eventually I was introduced to the Whitewater Center.

You worked there through high school or college?  Did you learn to boat (Whitewater kayak) there?

I worked at USNWC (US National Whitewater Center) for about five years right out of high school then all through college. I left after I graduated and switched to the desk life because student loans started hitting and all that. But I spent a lot of time there and still go often.

How did you end up working there?

My photography teacher—she used to be one of the original raft guides at the center when it opened up. She knew me, knew that I loved sports like that: snowboarding, skiing, surfing. She said, “You need to come out and get a job!” So I said, “ok” and signed up for the first raft guide school of the season.

Thats awesome!

It was great!  I immediately took to rafting and loved guiding. The center had a few Dagger Torrent sit on top whitewater kayaks. My friends and I would just go out and mess around on them. We had no idea what we were doing but we figured it out. We were just having a blast.

So you started raft guiding and playing in whitewater. Did you see kayakers and decide to learn or did someone introduce you to kayaking?

One day in late summer of 2012 I was waiting for my buddy, with whom I was carpooling, to get off work. While I was sitting there one of my bosses; Jacq, she was our scheduler, was practicing some stuff in the main channel—tricks like cartwheels and stalls (maintaining balance facing downward or facing upward with the boat on a near vertical axis) against the wall. I was just watching and she paddled up and asked if I wanted to learn how to roll. I was like “yeah sure!” So I hopped in the boat and tried my hand at rolling but I obviously sucked at it.

That first time is so disorienting!

Yeah, but from there I started practicing, really practicing. Then once I got the roll I had to get down the river. Then once I made it down the river I needed to learn how to actually paddle.

So that’s how you got into whitewater kayaking?

That’s how it all started, when she took those few minutes out of her day to teach me how to roll. And ever since then I was just hooked.

Did the proximity of USNWC to you help?

Coming from a surfing background where I’d try but couldn’t get to the beach because of weather, schedule conflicts and the long commute, I would say yes definitely. I could go down the street, 25 min from my house, and go paddle.

Did the two of you continue boating together?

Yes! I’ve had a few mentors over the years but she is still one of my favorite paddling partners. We’ve progressed together and gone on some awesome trips together over the years.

You already had a great connection to the outdoors it seems. Why is whitewater special?

In my interactions with the outdoors I’ve always been on my own program. I grew up skateboarding by myself because it was fun. I’d maybe go with 2-4 friends. Then I picked up surfing but I lived 200 miles from the nearest coastline. I would drive a lot by myself and surf by myself. But then whitewater kayaking happened. You suddenly have this whole family, 400 of your closest friends and you’re all united by what you love. The same mindset. It was pretty incredible to see that something like that even existed, because I had spent so many years of my life pursuing things by myself. To experience such a drastic change was refreshing. I wasn’t searching for it but now that I know it exists it still feels incredible to be a part of it.

It is one of the most welcoming communities of any sport.

It really is. For example, in my opinion, climbing is cool but in the gym people don’t really talk to strangers.  But when you roll up to the river you’re talking to random strangers, they’re offering you beer, you’re hitchhiking with random boaters. People just have your back. Whitewater kayaking communities are pretty crazy to see and be a part of.

Why do you think that is?

Um, I don’t know entirely. I think that—I don’t remember where I heard it, maybe Hammer Factor with Marc Hunt?—but I remember them saying, “Whitewater makes good people.” In my experience, I’ve only ever found that to be true. Only kayakers, a true kayaker, is going to be a kayaker. If that makes any sense?

I think I get it, but I’m a kayaker.

Yeah, for sure. OK, I guess I mean you really have to love the sport, be committed and dedicated to it to be a kayaker; someone who sticks around long enough to get through all the bad stuff. By that I mean the scares, the stress, the swims and frustration, before you ever start running rivers efficiently and well. I think the obstacles up-front and the amount of personal drive required to overcome those obstacles are common knowledge. When you meet someone you’re like, “Oh. This person. I KNOW what they’ve been through.”

That is a really good way of putting it. Regardless of who is standing in front of us at the “put in” we have a shared experience. No matter where we are we can pretty reasonably imagine what the person went through to get to the point of “hey, do you want to go kayaking?’

Exactly! You have to paddle some cold water with crappy gear and swim and it happens to the best of us!

We’re all between swims! Do you feel like being an African American in the paddling community made you more or less visible or influenced others’ perceptions of you?

I think that being an African American paddler makes you 100% more visible. You stand out amongst everyone. Not only do you look differently, there are not that many people with dark skin who spend time in these rivers.

How do you perceive that otherness?

When I first started I felt like I’d roll up to the river and get some funny looks like “who is this? What are they about? Are they gonna swim?” Not all the time, but I would definitely see people doing double takes at the river.

Does that still happen?

Not so much anymore. That was quite a few years ago. These days people recognize who I am and it doesn’t happen as much. There are a few other African American boaters around this area as well. I got my best friend into kayaking and he is rolling down the Green with me now. There are a few others in the area who are crushing it as well.

Does it feel like the increased presence decreases the amount to which you stand out as a paddler of color?

I feel like its more common to see an African American boater now so we don’t stand out as much. But, our visibility is still 100% because we look different from the majority of the community.

So it sounds like, over time,  people became used to your presence. You stuck with it, and folks stopped looking because they had seen you repeatedly.

Yes exactly! Over time they’d seen us, they were no longer surprised to see a person of color on the river. It is a bit of both, I stand out because I look different and have an ethnic name. It’s easy to remember. 

At the same time, I had a bit of presence on the river as I was going to the Green every weekend for a while, along with other paddlers that are just as “religious” about kayaking. They were also African American and folks grew accustomed to seeing a larger African American presence on the river. Nowadays, people are less surprised to see me and it shifts from them remembering me because I’m Black to them just remembering this is another kayaker I see a lot.

That is a cool transformation of perspective.

I think it is a little similar to the progression of female paddlers in the sport. You really didn’t have that many back in the day. Anytime a girl would roll up they’d be remembered because they were “the only one” or one of a few women paddlers in the area. Now there are so many more women in paddling in general along with women crushing at all levels of the sport that you don’t hear as much surprise. You know the person, their name, who they are, how they paddle whitewater. Their gender isn’t their only defining attribute.

Why do you think there were fewer paddlers of color and why do think there are more paddlers of color now?

I want to say a few different reasons. The biggest is access. In my example I would never have become a kayaker without the USNWC. I can’t overstate the impact of having an artificial whitewater park down the street from my house. I grew up in a major city and while I may have gone up to the mountain and east to the coast, I wouldn’t have been exposed to whitewater. It’s out of the way up in the mountains. Legacy matters. Having experienced friends or family who can expose you to whitewater helps! With no paddlers in my family or friend group, the chances of me becoming a paddler were slim. The intervening factor was USNWC which opened up a door that I wasn’t even considering at the time. Once I got started, the proximity definitely helped. Being able to get out and try to paddle after work made me more likely to stick with it. Proximity enabled me to really learn the sport at my leisure and convenience. It didn’t take me years to get good. I had the advantage of paddling everyday. I got pretty good at kayaking, pretty fast. I think having access and proximity to the river is such a huge barrier. It has gotten a little bit smaller. But I think that is one of the main reasons we haven’t seen as many people of color in the water as you would for a comparable sport.

Proximity to rivers and the access to them are definitely huge barriers to learning. You stuck through driving to learn to surf but also had remarkable opportunity with your family’s willingness.

Exactly. Then you start thinking about costs. The sport has a steep buy in. You have to buy a boat, helmet, paddle, skirt, PFD [personal flotation device e.g. life jacket]  and then dry gear like a dry top or dry suit [water repellant outerware for paddling afficianados] if you’re anywhere that has consitently cold water. Add lessons on top of that. That’s at least five mandatory things you have to get before you can even get on the river and learn on a regular basis. Buying everything secondhand still racks up quickly.

And compared to other sports that’s a huge buy in just for gear; not including the logistics of paddling and the need for a vehicle.

Compared to baseball and football where all you need is shoes, a ball, and friends, kayaking is gear intensive,  hidden from view mostly, and you have to known someone to get into it. Then you have to work and pay a lot, in money and dedication, to really get good at it. I think those are the big barriers you have to overcome to get into it.

It’s what $500-1000 to get into the sport if you mix new and used gear. Maybe a little cheaper if someone swings you a deal.

Exactly. I spent about 400 on my first set of gear. I bought a Necky blunt, almost cracked.

Do you still have it?

Yeah. Other than that I had a helmet and pfd from raft guiding but I also bought a skirt and a paddle. An old Werner Player with water in the shaft.

As you navigate your future where do you see yourself going in connection with environmental concerns and kayaking? As you move forward are you trying to stay integrated with the outdoors?

Absolutely! I feel like I have something to contribute. I have a solid skill set in GIS. I know the software and the applications and can figure out whatever is to be done. I feel I could use that as a tool for helping address environmental concerns. That could be a site feasibility analysis or working with a environmental non profit that that can’t hire a full time GIS staffer. I could assist in something like that. I could see myself doing that in the future. But as I sit here reading and learning about the current state of things it’s a little burdensome on the mental health. Just knowing everything that’s happening makes me feel a little helpless.

We live in interesting times to be sure.

I’ve come to deal with that by enjoying the outdoors. Just going outside and kayaking or whatever. I think I would fall into a sort of depression if I didn’t have the outdoors. It’s one of those things where you can fight for the environment a whole lot but become sad because you don’t see any progress happening. I can be doing all that work but not see a result. The minute you put that down and go enjoy the environment you’re trying to protect it melts the fears and concerns. Without being too cliche, it brings me back to why I want to do that work in the first place.

How do you see yourself? As a kayaker?  A black man? A human?

I don’t see myself as a black paddler or a black man. I see myself as a person who loves to be outside. I see myself as a human being. I’m just a part of the earth.  I feel I’m just a human that has a responsibility to look after the earth. Rather than a black guy trying to make it as a kayaker.

Have you experienced racism in the outdoors or any feelings directed at you that would challenge your perception of the community or change how you think others perceive you?

Yeah, I definitely have; there are a few examples I can think of off the top of my head. Kayaking takes you into the rural areas of North Carolina and there’s a long history there. Some of these areas weren’t the most friendly of places for all people. So occasionally you’ll still see things, campaign stickers and flags, that don’t make you feel very welcome when traveling through some areas.

Thats a common thread out west as well. It’s unnerving.

Also when I’m with a group sometimes people will say things like, “You’re the whitest black guy I’ve ever known” or “You’re really good at white people things.” I know they don’t have bad intentions when they say things like that but it is alarming when people do. Whitewater doesn’t belong to white people. By saying “white people things” they’re insinuating that white people DO own whitewater. Its just a sport.

It’s a thing you can do if you want to. If you have the time, access and money.

Exactly

I think they generally don’t have any intention or think about the effect when they say things like that.

I would agree. It’s not a lesser version but similar to when folks say you’re pretty good for a girl.

Yeah, not a compliment.

Still makes you cringe.

I’ve met other paddlers of color over the years and asked them similar questions And the answers change depend on age and regions. Older paddlers went through a different rough period of America’s history when they were learning to kayak. Very different but also similar to the climate we have grown in. And they’ve also said it’s an expensive sport and most people don’t want to do this. But once you’re in the sport the assaults, passive or aggressive, were mostly from outside-in. And if it was from the inside it was addressed.

That’s interesting that thousands of miles apart we have had a similar experience.

Yeah small world eh! Where do you see yourself going with paddling?

I’ve been inspired by Dennis Huntley and other old school paddlers. I had the chance to paddle the New with him and he was crushing in his open boat. Just telling us the rivers history. He knows all of it. I want to be in that spirit and have that history when I’m old. My goal is to have that kind of tenure within the sport.

What do you think will get you there?

I think doing what I’m doing. I’ve been paddling in the Southeast a whole bunch but I want to travel and kayak as well. I don’t see myself slowing down—you’re always learning and not just on the river. I just still want to be getting after it, meeting people and networking. That mindset keeps me going: constant learning. It’s always fresh, it will never get stale.

https://www.melaninbasecamp.com/trip-reports/meetrashidclifton

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Brittany Mostiller first learned about abortion funds in 2007.

She was 23 years old and sharing a two-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago with her three kids, her sister and her niece. She had just carried an unplanned pregnancy to term in February, which she said pushed her into a depression. Things got worse in July when she found out she was pregnant again.

“Everything just felt like it was caving in,” she said of her life at the time. “I felt stuck. I wanted something more. I wanted to offer my children something more.”

Mostiller didn’t have enough money for an abortion, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on where you live and how far along the pregnancy is. At the time, Illinois’ Medicaid program didn’t cover abortions, something that’s still true in 34 states and Washington D.C.

Mostiller reached out to the nonprofit Chicago Abortion Fund, which was able to cover about one-third of what ended up being a $900 abortion. They sent the money directly to Mostiller’s clinic. Abortion funds often pay for only part of a client’s abortion, in hopes of stretching their limited dollars to help as many people as possible.

Mostiller said the financial support from the abortion fund prevented her from taking more drastic actions she’d considered — like throwing herself down the stairs or having her 5-year-old daughter pounce on her stomach to force a miscarriage. But she said the fund gave her much more than money.

“I felt really held on that call and seen in a way that I had never ever felt,” she said. “It gave me hope. [Things were] rough, and they were like this light.”

Mostiller started volunteering with the Chicago Abortion Fund, and by 2015, she was its executive director. She now works as the leadership development coordinator at the National Network of Abortion Funds.

She said funds have been preparing for the fall of Roe since Donald Trump was elected president six years ago.

“It’s just real now,” she said. “They need all the support they can get.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/25/1112938261/the-role-of-independent-funds-to-help-people-access-abortion-is-growing

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Long before the National Parks were established in 1916, Black Americans men and women worked tirelessly to preserve the public lands that many of us today deem sacred. Though directly engaged as combatants in the Plains Wars that displaced Native Americans for the sake of westward expansion, people of African descent, many of whom toiled under the oppressive yoke of slavery, also cherished the sweeping landscapes and natural settings where we now visit for recreation and solace. That enduring legacy of environmental stewardship continues in the present through the interpretation of our history by Black National Park Rangers.

From the very beginning Black people have been part of what the naturalist and historian Wallace Stegner once described as “the best idea America ever had”. Today Black Americans embrace our role as makers of history.
“We came to the realization that the park system is a repository of the American experience,” says national park advocate and author Audrey Peterman. “Since people of color were integrally involved in building America, it follows that our history is interwoven within the parks.”

In the 1840’s, Stephan Bishop, an enslaved man, guided and mapped the caverns of what is now Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Born the year before emancipation in 1864, Captain Charles Young, led the Buffalo Soldiers, an all-Black regiment of the U.S. Cavalry, to patrol the newly designated parks of Yosemite and Sequoia in 1899. Since the earliest days, Black Americans have made vital contributions to the preservation of our national heritage.

In September the U.S. Military Academy at West Point commemorated the service of Black Americans with a 10-foot bronze statue of Sgt. Sanders H. Matthews Sr., the last known Buffalo Soldier stationed there, who died in 2016. Having enlisted in the army at the age of 18 in 1939 he served his country with distinction in World War II and the Korean War. In civilian life he was a police officer and dedicated much of his career to honoring the service of Black Americans in uniform. By celebrating the accomplishments of those who came before us and sharing their stories we firmly ground ourselves within the annals of our history.

But too often it seems the roles that people of color have played in the story of our nation are forgotten or simply ignored. By sheer neglect of historic facts Black Americans of the modern world are at risk of losing a critical connection to our ancestors who helped to establish the parks and monuments we have come to love.

Despite our legacy of preservation on public land, the National Park Service, like all federal agencies, was subject to the policies of Jim Crow era segregation. The scenic recreation areas under its charge would not be racially integrated until 1945. The first Black Park Rangers were only recruited and trained as interpreters in 1962. Robert Stanton, the first and only Black Director of the National Park Service, was stationed that year in Grand Teton. In part as a perpetual artifact of these restrictions, today the Park Service estimates that Black Americans make up less than 7 percent of National Park visitors, far less than our percentage of the general population (13.1 percent). Because of these disparities and others, the stories of Black Americans have been left untold and for many citizens there is no place for us in America’s best idea.

As interpreters of the past rangers share the narrative history of the parks and monuments where they serve. It is through the power of storytelling that we can shift the focus of distant memory to reveal many compelling tales we may have never heard before. Today there are many dedicated professionals who have devoted their lives to the preservation of Black history. Through their stories we can accurately remember the past and inspire a vision of the future that acknowledges both our tragedies and triumphs in the pursuit of a more perfect union. Black National Park Rangers, in particular, have committed themselves to sharing with passion and conviction the narratives of historical figures and events that have framed our national identity.

In collaboration with the New York Times I am pleased to share the stories of few of these Black Park Rangers. Visit https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/20/multimedia/black-national-park-rangers.html

Or download a PDF at https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/bringing-black-history-to-life-in-the-great-outdoors-learning-network-pdf/0240d1b0acb73d5b/full.pdf

https://joytripproject.com/2021/10/park-rangers-bring-black-history-to-life/