Environmental racism is real. It negatively impacts individual and community health and wellness. I’ve been on a terror lately writing about the negative health consequences associated with the toxic natural environments black and brown folks find ourselves in. In this column I want to offer an important back story, that, in retrospect, should have been my first, my bad! Understanding the past informs our present and our future.
The Eurocentric conservation/environmental movements as we know them, began in this country as early as the1800s. Early activists warned that unregulated development would lead to over-crowded cities and would destroy our nation’s natural wild places. Conservationists began promoting policies to clean up the air, land, and water in and near our cities and promoted protecting our natural wild areas and wildlife. They pushed to protect natural habitat from logging, mining, and dams, especially in the West. Although this column might read like a tribute to their early work, it is anything but! There is a dark side to both movements.
One of the most prominent environmentalists was a Scotsman named John Muir. Muir was born in 1838. His family emigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1849. Muir eventually made his way West and was soon overcome by its vast, natural, unspoiled beauty. He would spend much of his time in California’s Sierra Mountains. Muir became known as the “Father of the National Parks” helping to establish such places as Glacier National Park, Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park, and Yellowstone established in 1872. These places were established as “public parks or pleasuring-grounds for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” People, meaning individuals white in color and of European descent.
In 1892 Muir founded the Sierra Club, the first environmental preservation organization in the world. The Sierra Club’s stated mission is “To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth.” The Sierra Club he founded deliberately screened-out non-white applicants. Muir and others like him held unapologetically blatant racist attitudes. They especially held harmful attitudes toward Black and Indigenous peoples. Muir felt that the continued presence of Native Americans in California’s Sierra Nevada’s was a “blight”. He had no love for native peoples or African Americans, referring to them as both “dirty and lazy.” Twenty-seven current Tribes alone have historic connections to Yellowstone.
The Yellowstone National Park Protection Act of 1872, led to the practice of forced removal of Indigenous Tribes who lived in and around Yellowstone and in other designated parks for thousands of years. Historian Mark David Spence argued then, “… the creation of national parks must be connected to the removal and confinement of Native peoples to reservations. As more settlers and businesses move West, the federal government has to move Native people to reservations as part of a larger process of destroying Tribal sovereignty and “civilizing” Native Americans. Environmental organizations were established by and for white people and our National Parks as white spaces”.
When I started doing the research for this piece, two things became blatantly clear. The gap that exists between conservation/environmental movements and racial integration started popping up again and again in the literature. I started reflecting on the many awkward, lonely experiences I have had as a black outdoorsman, conservationist and environmental activist; and how racist these early individuals, places and organizations were, and, in many cases, remain.
Black and brown people have historically been excluded from environmentally minded organizations in the United States and from accessing and enjoying unabated the large tracts of wild and urban green places and beaches that were set aside for public use. Environmental racism is real and any black or brown person who has been involved in such pleasures or work, knows it. As Dr. Carolyn Finney, in her book Black Faces, White Spaces poignantly states, “It’s hard being green, when you’re black.” Understanding the past and the efforts and the places we have been historically excluded from are key to living well.
Dr. Bartlett is a retired educator. He retired from Gonzaga University in 2007 and Eastern Washington University in 2020.