Some readers may be surprised to know that this celebrity well traveled had never visited before a national park. Most black people will not be.
When I was growing up in Detroit, Michigan in the 1960, nobody in my family never visited a national park, nor to my knowledge, did anyone in my community. My friends at school never spoke of the summer vacation to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. Smokey Mountain and Mesa Verde was not raised in discussions in class.
I had my first experience with nature, while my father, who spent his career in the army, was stationed in Germany. Even now, I remember that cold air, heat from the hands of my parents and the proximity of the sky while walking at night on a mountaintop in the Bavarian Alps. Something in the mountains reshaped my psyche.Afro-Americans today are less likely to have a wilderness experience, but descended from people who were more likely to be intimate with the land.
Back in Detroit, my grandfather was an old tackle box in the basement and stories about fishing on Mackinac Island. Together we watched National Geographic special "Wild Kingdom" and I was drawn to the landscapes that seemed so little to the scenes outside our door. Half African and half Cherokee, my grandfather understood and encouraged the attraction.
When I became a park ranger in Yosemite in December 1993 did not know I was in a reserve that had been protected by the Buffalo Soldiers, African Americans serving in the Ninth Cavalry. Over time, I saw the story as a bridge between my culture and the idea of National Park.
I started to dress like a Buffalo Soldier and to tell this historical story to people who visited the park. Unfortunately, few of these people were African American. So I decided to go beyond the boundaries of the park with a novel.
"Gloryland" became the novel, and in some ways a reflection of my own family history: a father and an Indian soldier black grandfather. As I was writing from the perspective of a fictional Buffalo Soldier, I realized that I was claiming a sensitivity that was lost. Afro-Americans today are less likely to have a wilderness experience, but descended from people who were more likely to be intimate with the land.
In part because my interpretive presentations as Buffalo Soldier, who appeared in the recent Ken Burns PBS series, "The National Parks America's Best Idea." This series is already linked to many young men of color to these beautiful places, and National Geographic specials made me fall in love with nature. Oprah's visit will come even more young people of color.
Yosemite Oprah said that she felt God's presence. I imagine the children, adolescents, and families in Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix or witnesses of his appreciation for this place that never had reason to know that he was missing. Maybe they find the inspiration to pass TV for a while, at the head of Yosemite and Grand Teton or arcs. I'm sure some rediscover a connection with the nature of their ancestors were taken as a daily blessing.
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