In the meantime, we hope you are creating some fun summer memories of your own in the outdoors.

Can’t wait to share with you all the details and photos!

Have a great week,

Rue

Rue at 7, circa 1980

Regardless of how patriotic you are, the 4th of July represents family gatherings, fireworks, and great food — all to be experienced outdoors. Growing up, my family spent nearly every 4th of July at our place in Clearlake, California.

Cousins and close family friends would join us for non-stop swimming, hiking, talent shows, and driveway basketball games. Our fathers closely tended the 55-gallon drum that cooked “low and slow” meats seasoned at least two days before. And inside on the kitchen stove, the pressure cooker hissed the readiness of blackeyed peas and many other delicacies fussed over for hours by our mothers. Those were magical times that informed the love for the outdoors and family I hold today. In just a couple hours, I’ll get on the road and drive back to that sacred place to meet my now-grown cousins to share with our own children what remains of our childhood revelry.

So happy 4th of July Outdoor Afros! And in the spirit of great eats and fun across generations, here is a great barbecue sauce to share, suitable for everything from beef ribs to Boca Burgers. Taken from Sylvia’s Soul Food Cookbook:

Sylvia’s Soul Food Barbeque Sauce

Time 20 minutes
Serves 12
Ingredients

16 oz. Red Devil Hot Sauce
2 1/2 tsps. crushed red pepper flakes
1 small onion, sliced
1 small stalk celery, sliced
3 c. tomato puree
1 1/2 c. water
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 lemon, slices

How to make it:

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy pot and cook over low heat just until hot. Don’t bring to a boil or the sauce will turn dark and become thin.

Cool the sauce to room temperature, strain, and store in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator.

Makes about 5 cups.

Outdoor Afro had the wonderful experience this past weekend to be a part of Outdoor Nation, a youth summit designed to reconnect America’s youth to the great outdoors and inform organizations of what youth care about most. This was also the first official listening session as a part of Obama’s Great Outdoors Conference this past spring.

The event began with a mixer Friday night sponsored by Backpacker Magazine. Leadership from The North Face, VF Outdoors (TNF parent company), The Natural Leaders Network (Children and Nature Network), New York Restoration Project, Student Conservation Association, Bay Area Wilderness Training, New York Parks Recreation, Sierra Club, American Hiking Society, and many others gathered on the rooftop of the Arsenal Building in Central Park. Everyone seemed to enjoy the warm summer sunset, great libation, and engaging conversation that expanded networks, considered the barriers of outdoor engagement, and anticipated the hundreds of youth set to arrive the following day.

Saturday’s events began at noon in the park and the public turnout was amazing! Thanks to much local publicity, many hundreds of people, including several families with children, came and participated in rock climbing, kayaking, trampoline jumping, and hoola-hooping, as part of a treasure hunt to engage with the activity vendors and the various orgs. Each interaction earned stamps in the event’s passport booklet to win prizes. I had a blast working with Kyle McDonald, CEO and founder of Bay Area Wilderness Training at The North Face Planet Explore table to share with the public how to use the social network to connect with regional and local organizations’ events and activities.

Later that afternoon was the official start of the Youth Summit in an outdoor tented area of the park. Nearly 600 youth from all over the Unites States came to town representing several organizations to share what they cared about related to the outdoors. About 35% of those youth were youth of color, many visiting New York City for the first time. Outdoor Afro connected with Brother Yusuf and his stunning youth group from Albany’s (NY) Green Tech High Charter School, Mickey Fearn, Deputy Director of the National Parks, and Bay Area friends Steve Hagler of the Stewardship Council, Zakiya Harris of Grind for the Green, Ernesto Pepito of the Crissy Field Center, and many others for an impromptu reunion.

After an introduction and welcome by event organizers and sponsors, such as North Face CEO Steve Rendle, the youth were divided into various organizational themes or “tracks” to help guide their brainstorming process. Themes such as Diversity, Health and Active Lifestyles, Media and Culture, Careers, Service, and Recreation/Education were matched with issue experts who helped guide conversations that revealed a depth of thought and sophistication these youth had when contemplating how they care to engage with the outdoors – or not. Importantly, ideas generated by these youth can help them to apply for the newly minted Explore Fund,  a $2,500 grant to spark and sustain outdoor youth participation where these kids live. The evening concluded with a youth pizza mixer at the North Face offices hosted by the Sierra Club and Juan Martinez and the Natural Leaders Network contingent.

The following morning, White House officials from the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Labor and the National Parks facilitated the listening session to brainstorm answers to core questions; identify opportunities, and there were more in-depth track discussions to review and prioritize the top ideas of these sessions. Check out the Outdoor Nation website for more details about the conference outcomes.

It was a tremendous opportunity to hear youth voices, such as the African American young lady from environmentally impacted Bay View Hunters Point (San Francisco, CA) who lamented that she grew up thinking that asthma was normal because “every child in the community had it,” she said. With so much disheartening news related to the Gulf and its recovery, it was affirming to witness a return to the conversation of outdoor engagement among youth as one important step to help ensure a future of environmental recovery, sustainability, and justice.

A very special thanks to The North Face for making it possible for Outdoor Afro to take part in such an important and ground-breaking event.

Photo courtesy of Tyson Simmons, who is pictured here with his sister at Colorado Bend State Park.

Dianne Glave was spotted in Tennessee trying to beat the heat on a hike with a group at the Lucius Burch State Natural Area in Cordova and Germantown, Tennessee about 20 minutes outside Memphis.

On the other side of the country this weekend, Zeon K. was spotted trail running on Old San Pedro Mountain in Montara, CA above Grey Whale Cove!

Each week, post your SOS pictures on facebook, or email them to us to help more people of color be visible in the outdoors!

Winston Walker just sent Outdoor Afro some fun photos from a recent rainy day urban ramble walk with fellow Beckwourth Outdoors members in the Lower Highland neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. This walk has been a tradition for the club since 1999.

Walker says, “the rain just added something special to our 4-mile walk to view eclectic architecture and beautiful residential and community gardens.”  The group poked their heads into the local shops and picked up snacks along the way, weaving in and out of art districts, business districts, former mining town areas, and historic districts that tell the story of early growth in the West.

We appreciate hearing stories of outings like this one as an example of outdoor enjoyment that doesn’t require trekking miles away from where one might live — that local, urban spaces are just as important to appreciate and explore as unchartered back country. Hike on Beckwourth!

For more information about this dynamic organization, visit their website!

Courtesy of the Friends of the Regional Park

A botanic garden is a terrific place to go for an easy refuge from nearby urban spaces, and a chance to visualize the diversity and importance of plants in a natural environment.

Spanning ten acres, the Tilden Park Botanical Garden was designed in the 1940’s as a preservation area, and showcase of California plants including rare and endangered grasses, shrubs, trees, and flowers. The area features a year-round creek that runs through the gently sloping site into a cool rainforest preserve with several grassy enclaves for picnicking or quiet meditation. And for those who want to learn about the wide array of plants, many species are labeled by name and region.

According the garden’s website, it includes “nearly all of California’s conifers and oaks as well as collections of California manzanitas wild lilacs, grasses, aquatic plants, and flowering bulbs that are among the most complete to be found anywhere.” A visit here is indeed a virtual tour of the Golden State.

But did you know that botanical gardens are found near or within urban centers all over the country?

Billy Discovers the Creek

Here is a website that lists the best botanical gardens across the United States.

What is your favorite Botanical Garden? What do you like to do there?

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the  Bay Area Open Space Council Conference organized by Breaking the Color Barrier alumna and Executive Director Bettina Ring to celebrate and reflect on 20 years of conservation in the Bay Area and beyond. At the capacity filled event in the beautiful Presidio Club House was a dynamic mix of individuals and organizations who shared a range of data and stories: from the good news of how the San Francisco Bay Area has benefited from preserving its open spaces, to the sobering reality of childhood obesity and other health problems plaguing urban youth today because of a lack of connection to the spaces in their own neighborhood.

Thus, the conference represented a thoughtful look back at battles won and lost, but also a look forward to what is possible through fostering new collaborations that stretch beyond business as usual. Over the course of the day, we consistently heard the message of how engaging underserved and diverse communities is no longer an option, but intrinsic to the ecological survival of all, echoing what is commonly known about the benefits of plant and wildlife diversity. Therefore this conference underscored a necessary shift from simply preserving acres to preserving the people who live on them.

Elizabeth Goldstein, President of the California State Parks Foundation shared compelling California State Parks data that proves that people care about their local parks “no matter their financial circumstances, background, or where they live,” she said. The across-the-board support of the upcoming ballot measure that begins to address a decade of repair and maintenance backlogs and threats of park closures proves this.

The health benefits of outdoor engagement were also highlighted by Daphne Miller, MD, who shared that in addition to the known physical health benefits, there are some in the medical community who believe that time spent in outdoor spaces is beneficial for those suffering from depression, starting with just five-minutes a day outside.

Also in the building were Outdoor Afro favorites Dr. Carolyn Finney of UC Berkeley, who moderated a dynamic panel of youngish adults, like Ernesto Pepito from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, regarding the cross generation challenges and potential for collaboration, and Hazel Wong of The Nature Conservancy, who shared how the ballot is a powerful conduit to land, wildlife, and water protection.

New friend Laurie Schoeman also passionately related her experiences on the front line of the financial, environmental, and demographic hardships facing Bay View Hunter’s Point residents in San Francisco. Her silver lining is the recent opening of a green, community staffed EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park that came into fruition in spite of debilitating state funding obstacles.

Other conference highlights included a touching video retrospective of the Bay Area conservation movement, Golden Gate National Recreation Area Superintendent Brian O’Neill (1941-2009) and Conservation Legend Edward Wayburn, narrated by Doug McConnell of Bay Area Back Roads. A concluding poetry reading by Poet Laureate Robert Hass wowed the crowd with poems authored by children. Those poems proved to us all how powerfully youth connect to natural spaces when given a chance.

Overall, the conference was profoundly engaging, bringing together friends old and new.  I was delighted to hear throughout the day an echo of the message heard in Washington DC last month: connection and engagement with natural spaces is for everyone — and I am looking forward to seeing and taking part in next steps to make this vision a reality.

Outdoor Afro interviews Douglas Gray, an avid birder, who shares in his own words the gratification he experiences birding, and why it is an important and relevant activity for anyone.

How did you develop an interest in birds?

My interest in birds started as a young child.  I grew up on my grandfather’s farm outside Clarksville, Tennessee (actually Woodlawn, Tennessee, but “Woodlawn” is a lot harder to find on a map!).  Naturally I would see many birds on the farm, and I’d ask my grandfather, “Granddaddy, what’s the name of that bird?” My grandfather, who only had a 6th grade education, somehow knew the names of all the birds we would encounter on the farm.  I’m sure that’s what initiated my interest in birds.  I’ve been told I don’t “look” like a bird watcher, so this question is probably the most frequent question I get asked.

Where is your favorite place to look for birds? And where in the world would you like to bird you have yet to visit?

Many times I’m looking for a particular species of bird, so many times my “favorite place to look for birds” is the particular habitat of the bird I’m searching for. However, if I “had” to pick a specific spot, it’s going to probably be in the southern United States.  This past fall I went birding at a place called Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida…and had one of the best birding times of my life.  I look forward to returning there soon and often.  I like birding at National Wildlife Refuges across the US.

I would absolutely LOVE to bird throughout Central and South America, and also Africa. I’m also developing a good birding relationship with a friend who lives in Uganda, and will likely be going there next year.

Why should African Americans take an interest in birds and their habitat?

This is an interesting question.  African Americans, like everyone else, should take an interest in birding, because it puts you “outdoors” and anytime one gets in the Great Outdoors, it is a natural stress reliever. Being out in nature is possibly, I believe, the most calming, relaxing, and unwinding thing one can do.  It really helps put our sometimes fast paced and hectic lives into a better and more realistic prospective by slowing us down.  And while out in nature, what better thing to do than bird? Yes, I’m using “bird” as a verb; I suggest the book, “The Verb To Bird”.

And also, we African Americans have a somewhat unknown heritage in the historical realm of birding.  John James Audubon is the “Godfather of American Birding”.  Audubon’s mother was not well known.  The reason for this is because she was a Creole slave.  Audubon was born in Haiti in 1785.

Wow — that’s fascinating. So, if someone were to get started, what are the three most important things they need to have? Is it easy? What are some barriers (if any)?

I believe the three most important things to have in getting started birding are: 1) Binoculars, 2) Identification Guide, and 3) Desire.  Binoculars are important because birds have no particular interest in folks approaching them and observing them.  So the binoculars allow you to see birds up close, without actually having to be up close to them.  I usually tell folks to get a decent pair of binoculars.  You can get a decent pair of binoculars in the 60-100 dollar range.  A bird identification guide is a very useful tool also.  It will greatly assist in identifying the birds you do see…and just aren’t sure what they are.  And having a desire to see birds will never be extinguished.  Birding is a pursuit that will easily last a lifetime.  A very close fourth item is to go birding with more experienced birders.  Birders love passing along knowledge they’ve gained through experience.  Find a free bird hike in your area by checking out the National Audubon Society’s web site.

Birding can be both easy and challenging.  For example it can be easy identifying a bird as a “sparrow” that’s at your feeder, but it can be challenging differentiating the 3-5 different species of sparrows at your feeder, or the 20-30 different species of sparrows all within an hour’s drive of the feeder in your backyard at different times of the year.

Anybody can birdwatch.  There are no obstacles or barriers that cannot be overcome when the desire is there to see birds. (That includes obstacles like poison ivy and stinging nettle one may bump into off the beaten trail…lol.)  I’ve even had folks on some of my bird hikes who have been constrained to wheel chairs…and some of those have been my favorite and most memorable hikes.

What was the first bird to make your ‘life’ list? What bird do you hope to see in the future?

I’ll answer this question by mentioning the bird that reignited my interest in birds.  About 15 years ago I looked outside and saw a bird hopping around my yard and I had no idea what that bird was.  It led me to buy my first Bird Identification Guide since my high school years.  The bird was a juvenile robin.  The very common American Robin was the bird that pulled me back into the world of birding.

Name a bird species you hope to see in the future:

Wow…I can’t even answer this question, because there are so many birds that I hope to see.  I will say that it is my desire to see thousands of different bird species during my lifetime…and to enjoy and appreciate each and every one that I do see!

Douglas Gray resides in Indianapolis and works in Parenteral Engineering with Eli Lilly and Company. Most of his current birding takes place in Indiana, with a concentration on Central Indiana, where he leads bird walks for Backyard Birds.

]]> http://outdoorafro.com/2010/04/douglas-birdman-grey.html/feed 11 http://outdoorafro.com/2010/04/the-white-house-conference-on-americas-great-outdoors.html http://outdoorafro.com/2010/04/the-white-house-conference-on-americas-great-outdoors.html#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:44:13 +0000 Rue http://outdoorafro.com/?p=1419 As many of you have noticed from my Facebook and Twitter posts, today has been filled with a whirlwind of activity!

I know I should be asleep now, but I just had to share some of what made today buzz. It starting with time spent with Hazel Wong who graciously opened her home to me so I could catch up on some missed rest after a red-eye. After a brief nap, Dudley Edmondson and I met up to grab a bite at the famous Ben’s Chili Bowl. The two of us finally connected with Angelou Ezeilo, Executive Director of Greening Youth Foundation to sprint off to the pre-conference mixer at the Department of Agriculture where environmental leadership from all over the country and government officials met casually to network in preparation for our meeting time tomorrow. A highlight was meeting my Breaking the Color Barrier colleagues, like Audrey Peterman and Queen Quet. And I was delighted to see Dr. Cheryl Charles of the Children and Nature Network, and Akiima Price of the New York Restoration Project – and there were many, many others.

Badge and Binder for the Conference

The evening concluded with the most delightful talk with my hotel roommate Angelou. I tell you, this woman is doing amazing things for youth all over this country, and here is a snippet of some of the fabulous work she is doing:

Looking forward to sharing more about the conference tomorrow.

Note that the event will be streaming live. So check it out!