like. c-span powered by cable. american history tv saturday on c-span2 explain the people and events that tell the american story. 3:00 p.m. eastern was a second part of the calvin coolidge centennial conference marking the centennial to the white house 9:30 p.m. eastern on the presidency for her white house photographer for presidents ronald reagan and barack obama talks about the day-to-day workings of the presidency precluding the history making moments he witnessed exploring the american story watch american history tv on c-span2 find a full schedule on your program guide or watch any time/history tracks our third and final panel will examine challenges to the public parks. we are honored to have as our

moderator he was executive director of parks and recreation. she was born in denver traveled east and found herself back home where she has worked and served on the city council as president. in addition to a public post she's worked for several years as a facilitator with the national civic league. she was a founding board member of colorado women for political action in mile high. helped us kick off olmstead 200 onon april 26, 2021 print opus s 199th birthday. you can see her in action on our youtube channel if you want to her a year ago. we are delighted to have her today. she will moderate this final panel. >> thank you so much.

hello i think it's afternoon already. good afternoon everyone. i am excited to be part of this final panel. it's going to be a little shift and what we will be doing in the panel this afternoon. i hope you will find fascinating in some ways set us up for this with some of his challenging questions right at thekn end of where do we go from here. as we engage in this exploration of the history of these phenomenal individuals name the olmsted spirit start of the quick story about how i came to this in the first place. i hope you don't mind but dede asked me because we have some olmsted inspired to participate the subtle anniversary celebration. and right at the same time we

had some comedic gathering about one of our parks in denver where the word that was getting around the community was olmsted was not as great as they said they were. they were in fact involved in these very, very racist endeavors. and wehe should not be celebratg them. i raise that issue with dede. because it disturbs me. i came to understanding parks in the olmsted tradition like everyone else with a sense of all and admiration. i was horrified if these rumors were true. as with all rumors there is a kernel of truth. the great response and i think you dede and the organization for me for engaging in this conversation was let's explore.

i don't want to give you the answers but let's talk about what it means to individuals for multicultural backgrounds today. as we move forward. and so i have accepted this as an exploration of where we go in the future and how we learn from the past and from the history to guide us in that endeavor. and a part of that history what underscored that exchange was when the olmsted's were having an influence on our early park development in denver was a time when the ku klux klan had complete control of our cities. some ways it was guilty by association. it also represented in denver the movement to build, parks ad

cities a beautiful movement was the founding fathers shall i say. and talks about the prerogatives of wealthh and influence. the very notion of olmsted parks was not that. it was equitable yet the people in cities around the country were doing their own version of olmsted parks were in fact representatives of the wealth and influence. with this very mixed bag of her like to say it like the founding of our countries the complexities and the paradoxes of our history and the history of olmsted designs, parks, ideas were equally complex. especially when you think about the relationship. kim talked about the

relationships the marriage relationship like all relationships they are also complex and multifaceted. you are going to be hearing from this panel a real focus on people. in the we the olmsted envisioned -- you should never give me near any technology. whether it envisioned the we all the people for all is a very mixed bag as we move forward in designing and creating our parks system at a national, state, and even local level. to who is involved? we have a panel of individuals who are really going to reflect and really powerful ways about the relationships of people to

this movement into where we go into the future. also talked about a sense of freedom would create for us. and yet one of those paradoxes is that some people do not feel -- at that sense of freedom. in factma were the primary goals of my department today, still, is getting african-american -- young african-american and young latino individuals into our parks. we talk about feeling welcome. we are having a conversation about changing that idea of welcome. because welcome assumes that belongs to someone else. and that you are being welcomed to a space it's not really

yours. part of that child's beer going toin be facing in these individuals are going to be talking about is the very notiol of who the wii really is when we are talking about equitable access to the park system. reimagining inclusive system reimagining and thinking differently about the ideas of ownership in those relationships. and exploring where we have been even in this conservation movement. folks that look like me and wonder how we got into conservation. this is something we should naturally be engaging. some really hard h questions. on the exploration of history we do not want to be doomed to repeat it.

let me tell little bit about how the people are going to be sharing these ideas today. going to introduce all of them and then they'll come up each individually. first, philip burnham who is the author of indian country, god's country. native american and national parks. he is going to bring a very, very personal perspective having lived and taught at the rosebud indian reservation really exploring this ideafr of nationl parks for everybody from the weperspective of individuals who lived on this land and are now in places designated just for them. again one of those paradoxes. and so we look forward to

hearing phil's perspective. currently i asked him last night, currently working on on work about the impact of indian boarding schools on it many indigenous people today. a very, very -- you know our legacies of oppression, of our past. at the same time these marvelous new ideas about our national park system. secondly, we have priscilla solis ybarra who is the associate professor in the department of english at the university of northern texas. we are going to hear -- purcell is going to turn this whole conversation upside down and on its head. she gave us a little bit of a clue earlier today really challenging our basic premises about parks, national parks and

access. even this notion of ownership. we are going to be looking forward to that. andlt finally, shelton johnson. national park ranger and educator extraordinary who has landed in yosemite nationalat pk and just refuses to go away. [laughter] is alsond the author of glory land. a really interesting perspective about national parks and the dilemmas many of us people of color in this country face when we celebrate on one hand this marvelous invention of national parks and these beautiful places. and yet the prices that some of us pay for them to even exist.

and the tensions all of the time but wonderful exploration of that. it's going to bring a very, very personal perspective about what it means to be in these places that he is now the steward. helps guide the rest of us in that notion of stewardship. so i leave you finally with this. it is about that notion of stewardship. about that collective responsibility we now have. we inherit. we pick up theth legacy ofeg olmsted. we continue the legacy support in denver we start every meeting and every event with what we call a land acknowledgment. i would say it is a people acknowledgment and acknowledgment of our history. but we,ks moving forward will hr from these folkse today about

what we should shape our future stewardship of public land as we move forward. so let us start. first up is philip. >> my thanks to the national association of olmsted parks for inviting me too talk today. i guess this is my time to sing for my dinner sorted so to speak. i am not going to be singing. but i am going to tell you a story. i dom not have any pictures so i'm going to ask you to follow the story in your mind's eye. because it unravels oak under over quite a substantial period of time. the title of the story is the badlands and national park service parable. a landscape is a sculpted point of view. a framed perspective of space.

it is in the hands of people like frederick senior and junior a place groomed with exceptional care. we tend to think of landscapes as consisting of a fixed image, focused in time and space. look over there, isn't that a view?ful some landscapes however can only be understood after the passage of decades or perhapsie centuri. our national park landscapes pas have been pulled from the land. almost like found monuments for their forces that are geological or environmental. partly political and more often than we like to think, sharpened on the cutting edge of cultural conflicts. if you ever visit south dakota badlands he will not soon forget them. a stunning panorama of eroding

formations that have been described without doing them full justice as lunar or otherworldly. before the badlands were ever a tourist destination they were a richly inhabited ecosystem. one trapper in the 1880s called them and i will quote the greatest greatest game country that i ever saw. the area was heavily hunted in subsequent years by farmers, ranchers, tribal people even the federal government. the u.s. and biological exterminate coyotes and wolves is part of their predator control program. buffalo, black, grizzly bear, antelope, elk, deer were killed and chased from the region right local in market hunters. what had been a teeming mixed grassland cross by band lent draws in cutaways was transformed within half a century into the equivalent of

the desert. the government had visions bigger and better. federal 19 this is three years after the park service organic act noted stocking the entire bad land in the pine ridge indian forest indian force forec park and game purposes would become an object enthusiastically sought by the general public. it's worth thinking about what the writer meant by the general public. at the outset compete with the green monuments of europe. early national park legislation public playgrounds and a wonder lands whose stewardship and ownership will be jointly held by the american people. the easiest way to obtain or reserve such land is to show

they were unfit for economic development. the land in question were to be incomparable inspiration, priceless really. but also worthless from the viewpoint of making money through private investment. the only industry that stood to profit with the westernrn railroads and only then by bringing visitors to the newly created parks. the new parks like a yellowstone and yosemite had poor cousins scattered across the west in a form of indian reservations. reservations are generally regarded as economically marginal port next to worthless in the department of the interior department. as a result, indian lands were obvious candidates for inclusion in the parks because they were regarded as unproductive and already under the hand of federal trusteeship.

the badlands of south dakota were themselves part of the great sioux reservation established for years before yellowstone national park was created. in 1889 a government commission strong-armed into selling 9 million acres of their land including the badlands. at which point they became part of the public domain. in 19202 the first congressional bill was introduced to create an entity called wonderland national park and the western reaches of south dakota. not many settlers may have wanted to live in the badlands anymore. someone was betting people would want to come and marvel at their mysteriousty beauty. a paradox about the national park service is worth noting here. it is a conservation bureau charged with a mission to expand. in other words the nps aims to

acquire through donation, purchasen. exchange and imminent domain. when you think about it, such an expansive agenda it was likely to create hard feeling sooner oa later in the indian country. our parks are natural but theyare also humanly shapeds, sd blessed with old railroad hotels with magnificent views and promoted to represent a time of untamed wilderness. the parks became in a few decades the equivalent of unspoiled islands. expanses were tourist good camp, hike, fish with the sense of re- inhabiting a prehistoric past. but there was a problem too. tourists were not the first ones on the so-called wilderness.

the parkland had been used and managed by human beings to 1 degree or another foran generations and even centuries. with the business of boosters at its back congress authorized 19209 the establishment of badlands and national monuments. a lesser designation to a maximum of 50000 acres. seven years later in the midst of a great depression congress authorized monument boundaries to extend to five times their original area by including the edition of lands declared sub marginal or unproductive. the expansion brought the monument to the doorstep of the pine ridge indian reservation home of the sioux. at that point thing so far away for the park service was not finished with the badlands. in 1942 the washington or

codepartment announced plans to confiscate a chunk of the reservation adjacent to the monuments. 43 miles long by 12 miles wide. think of that 43 miles by 12 miles. roughly three and 50000 acres to create the pine ridge aerial gunnery range. the land was to be used for highflying target practice. this is a rough worthless land wrote congressman francis case. found inn government for trust with the pine ridge indians could be have on a long-term lease for a small amounts. in fact there were 125 indian lafamilies on the proposed l rangeland churches schools and senators. scores ofe other families use e land for subsistence are outsiders for cash income.

the wedge of rangeland was equal in size to a good size western county, about half the size of rhode island. the war department offered them a 1 cent per acre, per year to lease why billy owned lands within the gunnery range area. the going rate according to the interior secretary was between seven and a half and 25 cents. they were offered one cent by the tribe eventually settled ate time of national emergency the tribe is settled for 3 cents an acre. some of the land was owned outright by individuals indian and non- indian or given 30 days notice to move possession and vacate their homes breakthrough imminent domain are paid an average of $2.85 per acre, not much more than the going rate for one day's manual labor. permanent improvements left

behind, houses, barns, corrals, largely went uncompensated. little did any of the suspect gathering up their possessions in the act of being evicted that one day a large part of the gunnery range would become a part of badlands national park a place where people would come from thousands of miles away to camp, hike the low lands, and rural through the goalies in gun priceless off-road vehicles. twenty years and two wars passed at which point the air force declared surplus almost 300,000 acres in 1963. that year a park service report discussed how local poverty might be addressed through road improvements and tourist facilities. a dance center, a motel, a picnic center, craft sales all in reservation communities.

it even recommended an authentic sioux indiania village with real teepees, a point that had to raise eyebrows in an area where adequate housing was barely containable. the tribe reluctant to hand over any treaty land to outside authority resisted. so the bureau of indian affairs the park service, sister agencies, and the interior interiordepartment joined forceo devise a plan that will make part of pine ridge a tourist attraction. badlands national monument was to annex a south unit consisting tof an additional lands more tn doubling the monument size. 76000 would revert to the tribe omwhich would provide easement compatible with parking

ministration. the park service would not have to buy thene land at all it woud need to comanagement with the tribe. itit would no reason to own it when they can zone it just as effectively. again the tribe resisted. but if they would not make the exchange on interior affairs the remaining gunnery range land they said will be subject to disposal under surplus product procedures. in other words ofl the tribal council did not agree there was no hope what's controlled. in 1968 congress passed a public law 9468 approving annexation was a way to pressure the tribe informal as itsbl intention to withstand that balance national park.

at least as a park service landscape are still growing. it took seven more years before the tribal council consented. a memorandum of agreement in 19762 years later badlands national park was born in 78. so it was the south unit newly created what was there before became the north unit was to become if not an emerald necklace hopefully a native jewel of the prairie. the truth was more sobering in exchange for lenny park service onto the reservation they were merely returned land had been forced to surrender in a national emergency. time has not beenn kind. since i reported on the badlands

in a book about the national parks 20 years ago, washington has done little to live up to its written promises. training of personnel has been haphazard if not nonexistent. ordinance mitigation of the old bombing range land is still unfinished. proposed studies to assess whether bison should be introduced into the south unit have been shelved. signage and infrastructure push traffic away from the reservation. a small visitor center in a converted trailer it's all the visitors will find for the tribesmen denied first right of refusal for park concessions. while iter is true the people we promised all job the south unit, there have never been more than a handful at any given time. the conditional clauses of the memorandum wears carefully crafted to washington's advantage as were those of

congressional treaties a century ago. finally the tribe has political problems of its own. powerful wrenching interest from endorsing the idea of making a tribal national park. long-held dream of many to be administered independently from pine, ridge. many on the reservation acknowledged tribal government is in need ofrm reform. but without appropriations the vision of a scenic byways connecting the balance of the blackil hills i'm bringing some prosperity in its wake is for now a hollow wish. still, such organizations as the thunder valley community development corporation, they continue to work for meaningful change and advocate for it such as the restoration of bison. for all that the sun, wind, and

rain have done to shape them, the badlands are still an unfinished piece of work. in the best sense of frederick olmsted seniors a landscape is a place that integrates national beauty and human use in a way that benefits and supports not only those who come to camp and hike and admire the sites, but also the t communities who have lived there for generations. if only it were so today in the badlands. thankk you. [applause]

i am priscilla solis ybarra the daughter and i come to you from denton, texas north of dallas. my mother wasn't immigrant to the united states and my father is a second generation mexican-american who is a migrant farmworker. my personal land acknowledgment is to share with you i travel here today from the land of the wichita affiliated tribe. and as i mentioned the town where i live and where i take at the university of northth texass called denton named after jon deaton bent into graded genocide against indigenous people. against the wichita comanche and apache people.

in that area and in the 19th century. that was also a time when the texas rangers were committing violence against my people be mexican-american people as well as against indigenous people. i am very grateful to be here. thank you for the invitation to join you today. i believe these moments, as i mentioned earlier, are very important moments to reflect on what has come before. fand what we can do in the future. so let me get my presentation up here. okay. osuna said thank you for the introduction of the panel in the way you contextualize what we are doing on this last panel and

what has come before. so i feel like i was invited here to offer perspective of what we have been talking about and in the context of racial justice which hapi offered in her overview in the introduction. i have also been working for some years now on another american conservation legacy which the although in the style the leopold legacy. i am currently writing a book called in lights, mexican-american womanhood. abolition and abundance. that book is to really offer the part of the story of that leopold legacy. as well as the five children who were all mexican-american like their mother who was from new

mexico. and who all became environmental scientists. three of them were inducted into the national science, what is that called? national academy of sciences, thank you. how could i get that wrong when i'm here in d.c. the national academy of sciences. four of them were professors that research universities. so, this is to me a story of a mexican-american leading a family of american conservation that is not hidden story but certainly not well-known. so i've been working on that. i am approaching it through a narrative style that is somewhat memoir is take it story about my mother and about the fellow leopold and some about myself. what i'mis going to share if you today is like a brief and condensed excerpt of part of the manuscript it's in process.

ever since at least 2016, i've been putting myself through a process of learning from native and indigenous scholars, writing on the topics of climate change, constructivism, settler colonialism and environmental issues. by the summer of 2021 i felt both a personal and intellectual investments in finding my place as a feminist in solidarity with indigenous led actions to protect the earth. when an opportunity came to join a water walk i went for it. a water walk is an extended lead tradition honoring waters at life-sustaining gift. the first water walk took place in 2003. led by josephine a grandmother. josephine was asked what will you do for the water?

after reflecting on the question, she felt movedo. to gather a group of women and start to walk the shoreline of lake superior. they ended up walking around the entire lake. and the walk was born. eventually grandmother had walked to the shoreline of all of the greatl lakes. altogether some 17000 miles. before she died in 2018, she passed the ceremony onto other leaders. sharon m day and artist writer and organizer based in minneapolis continues the walk ceremony. she has walked nearly 10,000 miles of river. it was her walk that i joined on july 23, 2021. leads walks on the length of a river she start of the sermon at the headwaters of the river.

she and her fellow water walkers take turns hand carrying a copper pail filled with the rivers headwaters up or they walk from the headwaters, to the mouth of the river whereas another ceremony is held to reunite the waters. everyone sings and prays and speaks to the water. their path follows the bank of the river and they camp along the way. the water walk falls into a multiplicity of rhythm. the walker secure the water sent the central rhythm for the day begins with a gathering of all the walkers and opening ceremony or walkers set their intentions for the day. the first walker carries the water for about a mile. the groupp moves along asavan for the carrier makes a mmitment when accepting the water during the phrase. what h turn is complete the

water carrier passes the copper pa to the next woman in the days rotation and offers the same ceremonial utterances. which means i do it for the water. from the beginning of the day to the final ceremony the water never stops moving, flowing like the river and we move along with it according to each walkers pace. it is an audacious thing to carry water by hand over hundreds of miles. walkers transit along waterways and logging roads busy with summer traffic. the walk that i joined was the line three walk which was tracing the line three of the pipeline. the line three walked doug into the soil, injuries inflicted to install the pipe sections. the many vehicles of varyingat tonnage the pipeline construction wisdom passed us throwing grit into our faces.

our hair into our eyes. heat across our bodies in 100-degree weather. we help study the walker guide and strengthen us even as we carried it, cherished it saying to it and chanted as we walked. upon my arrival to the walk, sharon stayed close to for a while discussing some past walks. tell me about her theater group for youth in minneapolis. and i mostly listened. at a certain point she opened a space furby to reveal where i stood in terms of the kind of ceremony. she shared newcomers sometimesy worry that water carrying and singing as perhaps ineffective in the f face of the large-scale destructive force of oil companies. i told her directly i hold the study believe that the water is absently stronger than the oil companies. i did not know i felt so strongly until i said it to her out loud. upon reflection, this ceremony y

allows for such declaration and commitments to take root. i also learned and eventually from the other women to from the walk blossoms a whole community. each walker with distinct talents and commitments. hailing from diverse parts of the continent. i did not know it then but i was in the process of developing a new kinship. becoming part of the ceremony family. as i reflect on my experience on the line three water walk i am deeply grateful for the welcomed me.t i am also grateful the walk offered an ontological lesson. my deepest experience of the walk was might nearly absolute removal of chronological time. the roughly 28 hours for which i joined the walk opened up into multiple dimensions where it defies my rational mind fathom how much learning, connection and energy fit into a

comparatively minuscule band of time. the constant repetition of the cycle, the rotation of the walk held me aloft and it's rather than pray felt a sense of the way you feel when floating on your back in calm waters. i was focused on a moving meditation. this suspension may seem subtle. but it is a subversive sensitivity to cultivate. the water walk developed and their participants and attunement's to six of all time. to community, to commons if you will. in contrast to the dominant values of the late capitalist neo- liberal context that we usually inhabit in the united states. as space of isolation, of accumulation. the water walked values of the comments and for many in thee environmental community the values are understood in

relation a quote it's right to preserve the integrity stability and beauty of the community and it's wrong when it does otherwise. leopold did not factor ongoing indigenous ethics or presence into his vision of the u.s. when hed wrote. in another quote from his essay leopold says s quote there is as yet no ethnic dealing with man's relationship to land into the animals and plants which grow upon it. ". soon after leopold observed the pueblo indians settled the southwest and pre-columbian times. they happen to not be equipped with livestock for their civilization expired but not because their land expired." though the second quote includes a perfunctory rez ignition of the public care for the land in both statements leopold erases centuries of indigenous

knowledge, practice and ongoing presence. the passive structure of the statement, their civilization expired is both in accurate and avoids confronting the violence committed against indigenous nations by colonizers. as laurette savoy observed in her 2015 book memory, history, race and the american landscape, quote leopold call for an extension of ethics to land relations seem to express a sense of responsibility and reciprocity not yet embraced by the country but embedded and many indigenous peoples traditions of experience that landed fully inhabited intimate with immediate presence." following the logic of sequence and linearity leopold consider the history of western approaches to land as relevant to the story he tells it relegates indigenous knowledge and practices to the distant past but he proposes land ethics

is an innovation. he explains the quote first ethics deals with the relation between individuals" and that quote later accretions dealt ndwith the relations between the individual and society." for him the human relation with the land is the next logical step in the development of ethics. what he calls the ethical sequence. however she points out when she asks did leopold consider me? the ethical relations for toindividuals as well as between individuals and society were far from settled in 1948 or today. observes that quote in a book so concerned with americans past, the only reference to slavery, to human beings as a property was about ancient greece." leopold now reliance on history that reinforces white supremacy

and the logix of sequence linearity and accumulation get in the way of his ambitions. even leopold's critique of capitalism and consumerism in his call for plan ethics. they were in accurate but too narrow and the way he overlooked the systems as extensions of enslavement and colonization's. those very dynamics of enslavement and colonization are what animate today at multi- because in coalition based visions abolition feminism and indigenous land restoration movement. abolition feminism and indigenous land organized against the logix of enclosure, incarceration, the commodification of a bodies in the land. today's environmentalism becomes most effective when at least locating itself along a spectrum or especially by working alongside abolition feminism and land restoration. the more clearly one can see

between systems of oppression the less likely it is one will get sucked into fighting under the ineffective paradigm of single issue causes. although leopold did not invent the ethic he did forward one vision of a land ethic. he wrote the land ethic after living for years in arizona and new mexico sharon wiped his mexican-american wife and children, visiting his mexican-american in-laws homes and sheep branches. he andan his family were restorg an old dysfunctional farm in wisconsin into a beautiful prairie in pine forest. these are a land soaked by generations of colonial violence. yet he wasas still able to miss the connection. how closely did he listen to at what the land was saying? thisis speaks not only to leopold's individual avoidance of colonial history, but also telling of his social context that abetted his blindness.

how many generations of erasure help toon set the conditions for leopold in so many others she sounded urgent call on behalf of the environment without also calling just as urgently for abolition in the land back. on my first day of the water t walk i watched the late shift from that gentle donning of date to the clarity of the morning and then to the intensity of the heat. once our shadows are growing longer on the pavement the heat let up a little and share it let us know we were to bring the sermon to a close with the final circle but the detail of the closing ceremony belong to that place and time in the heart of those who gathered and shared. i felt overwhelmed with gratitude. it rained overnight cooling thanks all for the next day's walk. and relieving the summers searing drought just a little bit. i did not stay long because i

had commitments to get back to in wisconsin. i carried the water twice more before departing the walk. it was very difficult for me too leave. i said goodbye to sharon before her next turn to carryry the water. i held back tears when trying to express to her with the water walk meant to me and i promise to stay in touch. eafter saying goodbye to everye else i slowly started driving back to wisconsin. but i had to stop my car one more time. when i watched sharon carrying the water a flock of white pelicans soared above her. following her path. took a few photos, here is one of them then pulled myself away. as leave it with a whole new part of my heart open to a beautiful community and ceremony i now know powerful forces regularly gathered to honor the water and fight for the land.

that knowledge offers me a degree of comfort and strength. i ask you to consider the ways conventional american environmentalists to easily isolate its ethical concern for thee land from efforts to dismantle whiteac supremacy. this ease of a isolation reveala violence at the core of environmentalism that may prove difficult to eradicate. the water walk offers just one example of how to operate daotherwise. forging solidarity's across typical divides can be one way to dream new worlds free to create new ways of being. built on ceremony and reciprocity. before i and i would just like to recognize that my partner chaz who is here with me is also a water walker and i like to thank you for being here with me today. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible] >> hour closer. [laughter] no pressure on you at all. you are up to the task. >> hello, welcome before i begin ime want to thank the organizers for having me here and bringing me here. it is an honor to be here. it is a pleasure to speak to this group at my name is shelto. johnson of the national park ranger since 1987. i work national park since 1984. but i wasas born and raised in detroit, michigan. and i had no childhood national park visits and as a result felt

somehow impoverished by the absence of that type of inhabiting of a landscape that inspires one. and then at some point i realized that i am haunted by a family. the family that haunts me goes by the name of olmsted. i must accredit olmsted for keeping the spirit of mynn connection and affinity to the national world alive. i did not realize this until i received the invitation to speak here. because i had not been conscious of that. but i am primarily known for is bringing back the history of african-american soldiers, the buffalo soldiers who served in use enmity and the national park in 1899 , zero three , oh four. the obsession my obsession led me, is called a dramatic pause. led me to one day perform my buffalo soldier presentation for

the national park foundation. at that point i was not aware the fact that dayton duncan was an honorary chair of the national park foundation. dayton dokken is ken burns best friend. so essentially i was performing my presentation for the writer of national parks america's best idea. and after words he said something along the lines of michelle what you just shared with thisou group we might be ae to get that into a film that definitely has a place. i began to anoint him over time thing is it still there? is it going to happen? to make a long story short which i loathe to do i love epic poems especially homer and virgil. my background is classical music and literature as my father put it, unemployment. [laughter] my father put it that way because my dad served in the

infantry in korea he was a combat veteran. he served in the air force in opvietnam my brothers served in the navy and operation iraqi freedom pretty comfortable from military family that is white military history speaks to me. it is in my blood when the buffalo soldiers story found me on the third interpretive ranger serving in s yosemite and sequoa in 1899, 1903 and 190 for more than a decade before the park service or african-americans serving in the world predict only about a dozen national parks on the planet earth at that time around 19 hundred. it boggles my mind and in detroit by the way it's illegal they boggled but if you're african-american for the okay and trouble right there.

it boggles my mind that people who look like me were in the position are protecting the second and third oldest national park in the united states. there protecting the giant sukhoi at which were originally in the state grant and protecting about no questions by the state grant. when they were there the miracles still belong to the state of california. he 78 valley still want to state of california. very really, really in the valley itself. but they were in yosemite. american say to me why would he go to national park that's not a black thing, that's not something we do and i say to them actually people who look like you have some of the first protectors anywhere in the world. and there is a pause. and that is a pause of absolute response. they were not and we were not told as a people that we had a rule in the national park movement. it is a movement just like essentially the civil rights is

a movement. and movements i think of waves bye think of waves i think of water i think of seachange were writing that shock wave of change since the beginning of the republic. but it moves so slowly that way. and sometimes it goes back on itself. i started thinking about my connection via the olmsted's to yosemite i realized they have always been t there. i am a ranger today because my father served in germany and i was there with him with my mom and my brother in germany. and it was a family trip. it's a sister park to yosemite it's high in the bavarian alps. was also a trip to the black forest. what i'm saying is if that had not happened i would not be here speaking to you right now. erbecause i never would have become a parkbu ranger. but a seed was planted a seed is planted in a child's mind look at this way, when you are five years old how many of you remember being five years old?

how many remember it as if it were yesterday? those experiences don't just go to the visual aspect of who we are. they don't just between auditory sense of what we're hearing. it comes through us. particleswithin us and stays tha seed that has been implantable take it's time to sprout, to flour, to blossom and to become who you are meant to be. i had no choice but to become a park ranger. it was not destiny but it was preordained because it five years of age you are like this when you see something new but by the way wheniv you're five years of age everything you're saying is something new. [laughter] it's a look of wonder like this. even if someone is just handing you glasses when you go glasses. it may not seem miraculous width of the eyes of a child was never seen a pair of glasses before is a miracle weight changes and

distorts the light. that is a miracle. when you put a child like that any child in a grove of giant sukhoi at the edge of the grand canyon, bite moonlight by the river to watch the eruption of old faithful it is a transformative experience that will get intotu the cellular structure of the body, the mind, the spirit they will never forget. and that is what happened to me. they became part of who i am. the black force became part of who i am and that is why became a park ranger. that's when the story revealed itself to meet had that visceral, emotional, psychological connection. but that was before i realized this connection to olmsted. i ride in yosemite therefore yosemite arrived in me. i was overwhelmed. think people were not overwhelmed by the beauty of yosemite should seek medical care. [laughter]

i'm a bit on the bus with a woman who said it's not all that, it's not all that and i was thinking how sad that she thanks this is not all that but yosemite is all that and more. we should that have that on the side yosemite is all that and more. because the thing i realized is when i walk out to the visitor center i have walked out into a painting thomas hill, my first other artwork i thought the romantic. exaggerated this sometime there's a tendency to move things around a bit made out of granite looked a little bit more dramatic than the bite. but when i was in yosemite i walked out after closing the visitor center and 28 thomas hill painting. i realized they are not romantic painters they are realist. this is really happening. when you see horse tail fall in the springtime it creates it's

called the fire fall is illumined by that light. youed realize you are in an incredible place. the extraordinary is ordinary. rangers get like that when they are there for their walking along and they hear oh my gosh it's a bear and yes it's a bear because we see in them all the time. it's a double rainbow and they're going yes it's a double rainbow. humann beings can get used to just about any environment. i am saying this to you because reading and rereading the olmsted report reminded me of the value of national parks the power of national parks and the democracy that is implicit in the foundation of national parks i never thought to myself that when he read the phrase to the benefit and enjoyment of the people that i was part of the people i recognize when thomas jefferson wrote we the people he was referring to land owning

euro-american males of property free of debt that's who he was referring to is not referring to women. he was not referring to native americans. not referring too people of colr he was referring to the men that were in the room with him. when you first read that you're thinking that's terrible. then you start thinking it's a good thing he was so vague. [laughter] or, i had a conversation with ken burns about s this he said somethingg along the lines of that they spelleded out what thy meant we would be screwed. [laughter] it's the u best way the cloak wl use is the best way to describe that now we can reinvent what those words mean. we couldn't really read those words get a different connotation get a different denotation. mean something different for us today just as national parks today will have a different meaning tomorrow. they evolve through time because all ideas evolve through time. and those ideas that shape us are ideas that we have shaped

intern. that is a very powerful thing i'm thinking and communicating this because i'm still astonished by the fact i'm wearing this uniform that i am a ranger. i was raisedai in detroit when i was raised in detroit and live next door to the parents of norman whitfield, norman whitfield is the songwriting hall of fame. he wrote poppa was a "rolling stone" i heard it through the grapevine for he t wrote music r "the supremes" and diana ross. and oh yes, marvin gaye. all i knew about him as he had a red jaguar at the thomas and i don't know what this man does for a living but i'm going to be doingag that. it didn't work out my background is music andt poetry. that is the landscape that is the atmosphere within which i am raise the only reason i am here is because i held onto those memories of germany and it was easier to do that, why? because on sundays in the summer

time my grandparents were black indians from oklahoma. today mention this? i love to talk my grandfather is a farming community he is african and cherokee. my grandmother maternal is from mcallister.in mcallister's second largest town in the choctaw nation for its far as i know she's african and cherokee as well but my father's side of the family is african and seminole. i think about the facts that i have relations who were on the trail of tears who survived epic that only white cherokee would be in oklahoma. i have relatives, relations that fought the u.s. army to withstand a standstill on technically speaking they never really lost the government realized we keep sending troops onto florida but they never make it out. then they send more troops. and they didn't make itn' out. and suddenly they realize we better just stop the protocol here. that gives you a little attitude as well. so that is part of my

background. when heso started telling the story of buffalo soldiers i carealize the character portrayd was african and indian that would make a greater story. that also would be a story that is more true. there is a complexity to all of us that usually we do not acknowledge we have a tendency to say there's a black or a native person we are so much richer than that. i think we knew that the human genome study that determine the difference in dna between any two human beings is less than 1% were basically a race of identical twin. when i read that i thought why should this be on every newspaper in the country? we are all basically the same family, why? because the world does not work thatat way. and when you read history you see the underpinnings of today and what was yesterday. and that gets us back to the

olmsted i'm arriving in yosemite i am reading the olmsted report the first thought when i read it was i could go back in time i would hand the olmsted report to martin luther king when he was in jail writing the letter from a birmingham jail, why would i do that? he never made it to a national park. there iss a story of him potentially being invited to go to a national park in canada. but it never happened because a superintendent of that parking canada realize there are many guests to that park from the deep south there is an issue of whether or not there would be a slight. a racial slur of some kind they could not guarantee there would not be some impropriety that would take place. so the invitation was never issued. and ironically it's part of the national park system. there is all these with history. when i delved into the story and i delved into my own personal history i realized they were a

sickly parallel tracks. when i was reading the book about the civil war and it was about emancipation or the park ideath you have a president in n divisive or in the 1860s, abraham lincoln. you have a president or presidents in the divisive war, vietnam or my father served. and you have the pageant of the wilderness act in the 1960s and you have the passage of the yosemite grant in 1860 i realizewe hardly ever talk and e two things together. you cannot talk aboutca america without talking about race and space you cannot talk about america anyplace else without talking about the west. our ethics really should be based on lewis and clark. that is when things started going bad. or think started going good. it depends completely on your perspective, on your point of

view. but what has fascinated me about lewis and clark he was there with him and became a de facto interpreter of the instant decision as group c encountered because of language. why did youil have been africann the world is the ability to adapt very quickly or you will die. you have to make quick adjustments. that wasro survival that's where my father left south carolina that is my father joined the army as the irony of that situation my father found it safer to be in korea in the infantry then to be a human being suggesting the fullness of his humanity in spartanburg, south carolina. and on the notion war it would be safer than being a citizen. to give you an example of this and how things couldth change i wish my father had lived long enough to see this, a few years ago i got a call from the spartanburg library system they had picked my novel, glory land

for the reeds program. they invited me too spartanburg, south carolina and they took me too my great-grandfather's home that i had never been to i had no idea where it was or where my father was raised pretty fun at my great-grandfather run a school for the blind in the late 1800s outside of spartanburg, south carolina for the course southin carolina was the first state to succeed from the unit i had no idea of this history. i realize most history is forgotten. most history is lost. that is profound in and of itself that most of us right here andto everyone we know in terms of the historical record will be lost. that is reason i spent so much time, effort, sweat equity bringing this history back because they built the first trails the highest mountain in the united states about the first usable wagon road in this quietou giant forest the most historic in the world but they did these things but it is not

acknowledge that's the reason i have devoted my life to that but i had no idea about the olmsted connection was temporarily touching because it's actually scary. first connection. i am in new york i am in new york because i am with ken burns we are in e central park my firt six points in central park was in front of 20 or 30,000 people i am backstage with carol king and alison krauss. the usual people. [laughter] and peter and paul of peter, paul, mary river all backstage i'm sitting here something is wrong here. why am i here with these people i could not figure it out. at some point of sitting there someone tapped me on the shoulder i lookedd up it was david rockefeller. i had work with david rockefeller at a mountain film festival i said i heard you here want to drop by and say hi.

i don't usually get e-mails or messages from david but that is what happened for there's a connection to the rockefeller foundry. there's all of these connections with history. it's like having a conversation with your left finger you're expecting a rate them y to not know about it. but there is a circulatory system that combines the two together. that is what i realized when i seven delving into this history of stewardship and the history of protection i read and was rereading the olmsted report. i realize that oh m my god, this would be perfect and would have been perfect if i could have handed it to martin luther kingt jr. because this and my mind my work as a communications specialist is to bring people of color into the national park. in connecting to their own inheritance. it does not matter who they are they are a person of color they are least likely to have that experience i want to build that bridge. community engagement specials

and people asked me what i really do tell them i'm in astonishment facilitator. [laughter] that's really my job title at work so much better than interpretive ranger. i say interpretive ranger people usually say what language you speak? i say speak that language of creation that throws him off even more. i say i'm astonishment facilitator why is that? seeing what olmsted's out and sw simi valley will do it. i had the expense of having to drive down to the southern part of the park back to somebody valley daily for about two months. every day at the end of the day i drove through the tunnel. the tunnel was designed by frederick olmsted junior. i don't know howe, many here is driven through the tunnel at sunset? you can't see it but he has a glow now having that memory right there. you come through it versus pinpoint of light off in the

distance. it is like the birth canal if you're having a memory of being in the womb and you'ree about to be born you do not know what is coming looks like it could be. great but i do not know if never seen theen memo i don't know its happening but gets bigger and bigger right for you get to the opening there's water in the springtime trickling down you can get on the windshield and all the sudden there's a el capitand right there. and often the distance or is this incredible valley, yosemite valley. it looks because of how you got there how yoush get to a place n shape how you see it and how you react to it. people take the drive through the tunnel it can be a religious experience.d i do it every day but i found it as it was different every single day. it is always different different part i'm upset now because i'm here and i'm missing something kin yosemite. you see why he has our closer. [laughter] >> i am just getting warmed up.

[laughter] [laughter] [applause] lexi program said you got a park ranger but you can see you did get a poet. and his background. do we have a few moments for q and a? or should be wrap up? we should probably wrap up. okay. so let me wrap it up. i think what you heard from this panel was a challenge. i think a number of questions on the table for us to ponder.

that sense of wonder and the connection to olmsted is an invitation for all of us to move it forward but what does that mean for all of us today? i think of a young african-american student when i was in college who lived within walking distance of central park who had never seen the place. we took them every weekend to visit. i think shelton saying it is a wonder i am a park ranger. unfortunately it is still a wonder. too much of when an african-american young man or woman would be considered to be a park ranger in yosemite or any of our other national parks. and that on indian reservations and across the nation people are still walking thousands of miles

to remind us the major which we have the olmsted lead us to ledo preserving special places. but now we realize in the space of climate change and water scarcity thatt idea has to expad dramatically. and the idea of stewardship involved in inclusive idea of how the compatriots of today's olmsted look like all of us here. and so i leave you with that we look at a wonderful tour of the incapitol grounds. let's give this a panel again round of applause. [applause] quick site you want to give short we have an immense topic and could have gone on for some

time. we will call today for now. i want to end where we began thinking about the 1865 yosemite report and its focus on the importance of access to nature that it not be the pure operative of thef privilege. there is the importance of public spaces or >> engagement, for community and inclusivity. for mental health and physical well-being these are all principles that we are celebrating are also rethinking and reimagining in the course of this bicentennial. so i'm glad all of your here. i pursue the cosponsorship of the capitol i hope you will leave today'sou session's thinkg again about the public spaces about inclusion unsustainability. that olmsted vigorously and

engaging. thank you for being here. enjoy the rest. we will conclude. [applause] ♪ weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america stories and on sunday book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors were fighting for cspan2 companies television companies and more including cox. >> is extremely rare. but friends don't have to be. when you are connected you are not alone rex cox, among these television companies support cspan2 as a public service.

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