and thet tears that infest today show and silent i will go away. [music] >> healthy democracy doesn't just look like this, it looks like this where americans can

see democracy at work. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, undiced word for word from the nation's capitol to wherever you are. this is what democracy look like. c-span powered by cable. >> third and final panel will examine challenges to the public park ideal and we are honored to have as moderator executive director of parks and recreation, she was born in denver and traveled east and went back home where she worked for federico peña. in addition to republic posts, abby has worked as facilitator with the national civic league and she was founding board

colorado black women for political action in mile high youth corps. kathy helped us kick off olmstead and you can see her in action in the youtube channel if you want to look at her a year ago but we are delighted to have her today and she will moderate this final panel. >> thank you so much ddianne. good afternoon, everyone. i'm excited to be part of this final panel and it's going to be a little shift of what we will be doing in this panel this afternoon that i hope that you will find fascinating and in some ways some set us up for this with some of his challenging questionsal right at the end about, you know, where to, where do we go from here as

we engage in this exploration of this history of -- of the phenomenal individuals named the olmstead and i will start with a quick history how i came in the first place. i hope you don't mind. didi asked because we have some olmstead in parts of denver to participate in the anniversary celebration and right at the same time we had some community gatherings about one of our parks in denver where one of the -- the word that was getting around the community was that olmstead wasn't as great as they said they were and they were, in fact, involved in the very racist endeavors and we shouldn't be celebrating them. i raised that issue with didi because it disturbed me.

i came to the -- to understanding parks and olmstead tradition like everyone else with sense of awe and admiration and i was horrified if the rumors were true. and as with all rumors, there's always a kernel of truth. the great response and i thank you tedee and the organization for me in engaging in this conversation was let's w explor. i don't want to give you the answers. let's talk about what it means to individuals from 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, from the history to guide us in that endeavor and part of that

history in denver, what underscored that exchange was that when olmsteads were having on our early development was a time when the ku kluz klan had complete control of the city and in some ways it was guilt by association but it also represented in denver the movement to build parks in the city. the beautiful movement was , you know, the founding fathers shall i say and what our wealth talks about and the notion that olmstead was not that but was equitable and yet people in cities around the country who were doing their own version of

olmsted parks were, in fact, representative of the prerogative of wealth and influence and so we have this very mixed bag and i like to say the founding of our country, the complexities of paradoxies of our history and the history of olmstead designs, parks and ideas is also equally complex especially when you think about the relationships. kim talked about the relationships, the marriage relationship and like a all relationships they are also complex and multifaceted and so you're going to bed hearing frm this panel a real focus on people. the we that is -- that olmstead envisioned -- did i turn that off? you should never get me near any technology. [laughter] >> what the olmstead envision,

we the people for all is a mixed bag as we move forward in designing and creating our park system both at a national and a state and even at a local level so who was involved. and so we have a panel of individuals who are really going to reflect in really powerful ways about the relationships of people to this movement and to where we two into the future. ralph talked about the sense of freedom that olmstead inspired parks would create for us and yet one of those paradoxes is that some people don't feel -- don't get that sense of freedom. in fact, one of the primary

goals in my the president today still is getting african-american young african-american and young latino individuals into our parks, into our mountain park system. we talked about feeling welcomed and we are having a conversation about changing that idea of welcome. you're being welcomed to a space that's not really yours and part of the challenge that these individuals are going to talk about is the notion of ownership and who we really is when we're talking about equitable access to our park system and reimagining an inclusive system, we imagining and thinking differently about the ideas of ownership and those

relationships and -- and exploring where we have been even in this conservation movement where, you know, people still look at folks that look like me and wonder how we got into con certifiation as though this is something that we should naturally be engaging. so we are addressing hard questions here that hopefully will help us in the exploration of history because we don't want to be doom today repeat it. we want to build on what we have learned. let me introduce all of them and they'lln come up each individually. first philip burnham who is the author of indian country, god's country, native americans and national parks, and he is going to bring a very, very personal

perspective havingin lived and worked and talked at the rosebud indian reservation and really exploring this idea of national parks for everybody from the perspective of individual who is lived on this land and -- and are now in places designated just for them. again, one of those -- those paradoxes and so we look forward to hearing philip's perspective. and i asked him last night, currently working on -- for -- on work about the impact of indian boarding schools on many of the indigenous people today. so a very, very, you know, the legacies of -- of oppression, of a past at the same time the marvelous new ideas about our national park system.

secondly, we have priscilla solíss ibarra who is the associate professor in the department of english at the university of northern texas and we are going to hear a really -- priscilla is going to turn this conversation upside down and on its head. i think she gave us a little bit of a clue earlier today about really challenging our basic premises about parks and national parks and access and even this notion of ownership and so we are going to looking forward to that and finally shelton johnson, a national park ranger and educator and landed in yosemite park and refuses to

go away and also author of glory land, a really interesting perspective about national parks and the themas that many of us people of color in this country face when we celebrate on one hand this marvelous invention of national parks and beautiful places and yet the prices that some of us paid for them to each exist and what -- those tensions and exploration of that in his book ofd. glory land but he's going to be bringing a personal perspective about what it means to be in these places that he is now the steward and helps bide the rest of us in that notion of stewardship. so i leave you finally with this, and it is about that notion of stewardship, about the collective responsibility we now

have. we inherit the legacies of the home homestead and we continue to legacies. in denver we start every meeting and every event with what we call a land acknowledgment. i'di say it's actually a peopls acknowledgment and acknowledgment of our history but we moving forward i think will hear from these folks today about what we should shape our future stewardship of public landsla as we move forward. so let us start and first -- first up iss philip. my thanks to the national association of olmstead parks for invite knowing talk today. i guess this is my talk to sing

for my dinner so to speak, last night's dinner. i'm not going to be singing, but i am going to tell you a story. i don't have any pictures so i'm going to ask you follow the story in yourou mind's eye as it unravels over quite a substantial period of time. the title of the story is the bad lands, national park service parable. a landscape is a scoped point of view, framed perspective of space and it is in the hands of people like frederick law omlstead, senior and junior and came to think of landscapes as consisting of a fixed image focused in time and space. look over there. isn't that a beautiful view? some landscapes, however, can only be understood after the passage of decades perhaps

centuries. through forces that are partly geological and environmental and partly political and more often than we would like to think sharpened on the cutting edge of cultural conflict. if you ever visit the south dakota bad lands, you won't soon forget them. a stunning pan ramma of balding eroding formation that is have been described without doing them full justice as lunar or other worldly. before the bad lands were a touristt destination they weria richly inhabited ecosystem. one trapper in the 1880's and i quote, the greatest game country area that i ever saw. the area was heavily hunted by

farmers, ranchers, tribal people even federal government. the u.s. biological survey exterminated coyotes and wolfs as part of predator control program, buffalo, black and tabrizlyk bear, elk, tier were killed by local and market hunters. what had been a. teaming mix grassland wastr transformed witn half a century within equivalent of final desert. the government had a different vision that was bigger and mo

it's worthying about what the writer meant by the general public. americas parks weree envisioned tome compete with the grand monument of europe. they offered public playgrounds. the stewardship is held by theth american people. the easiest way to obtain that was to show they werecandidatese

parks because they were regarded as unproductive and already under the hand of federal trustees. here, the badlands of south dakota were themselves part of the great sioux reservation and established four years before yellowstone national park was created in 1889. a government commissioned strong arm, the lakota sioux and to selling 9 million acres of their land, including the badlands, at which point they became part of the public domain. in 1922, the first congressional bill was introduced to create an

entity called wonderland national park in the western reaches of south dakota, not many settlers may have wanted to live in the badlands anymore, but someone was betting that people would want to come and marvel at their mysterious beauty. a paradox about the national park service is worth noting here. it's a conservation action bureau charged with a mission to expand in other words, entrusted with protecting public land. the nps also aims to acquire it >> through donation, purchase, and eminent domain. and eminent domain. the agenda was likely to create hard feelings sooner in the indian country. our parks are natural of course but humanly shaped.

stocked with large items and promoted to represent untamed wilderness. theca parks became the equivalet of unspoiled items. you could camp, mike, and fish with reinhabiting a prehistoric past. there was a problem too. tourist weren't the first one in the wilderness. the parkland was used and managed by humans for one degree orev another in generations and centuries. with business boosters at it's back, congress authorized in 1929 t the establishments of badlands national monument. a lesser designation than a maximum park of 50,000 acres. years later congress authorized

boundaries to extend to five times the original area by including the additional lands declared submarginal or unproductive. they brought thenume monument te of the pinewood indian reservation. at that point, thanks to a far away war, the park service wasn't finished with the badlands. in 1942 washington war a part of the reservation adjacent to the monument. 43 miles by 12 miles. roughly 350,000 acres, to create the pine ridge aerial gunnery range. the land was to be used for high flying target practice.

thiswo is rough worthless land. injurior owned for the pine ridge indians. there were 125 indian families on the land no to mention several day schools, churches and cemeteries they leased it to c outsiders for income. the wedge was equal in size to a county halff the size of rhode pisland. they offered one cent per acre to lease the land they were

offered one cent. the tribey settles for three-ct per acre. some of the land was owned out right by indian and nonindian to remove all possessions and vacate the homes they were paid two dollarshe per acre little kidney of them suspect gathering up their possessions that one day it would be come a part of dsthe park to camp a hike the

lowlands. 20 years and two wars past. at which point the air force almost 300,000 acres in 1963. they discussed how poverty might be addressed through theimpr facilities. be addressed through theimpr center. itit recommended an authentic aa with real tepees in an area where adequate housing was barely obtainable. the tribe was on treaty land. so, the bureau of indian affairs

joined forces to devise a plan for a tourist attraction. badlands national mown monument was a south unit. they used the additional lands doubling the monument size. they would revert to the tribe that would provide an easement compatible with park service and they wouldn't have to buy the land at all. they would only need the tribe. no need to own any acreage when they. could zone it as effectively. again, if they wouldn't make the exchange countered the senate committee on interior affairs.

the remaining is subject to disposal under property procedures. if the council didn't agree there was no hope of regaining most o of the gunnery rangelands once controlled. in 1968 congress passed a aid approving the annexation as a way toli pressure the tribe into establishingng a badland nationl park. the badlands, as least as a landscape was still growing. it took several more years memorandum of agreement was signedan in 1976 and two years later the badland national park was newly created. what was there became the north

unit.

a small visvi i v is tor centern a tailor is all visitors will find.tr the tribe has been denied first right of refusal for park concession. it's true the people were promisedhe all jobs there were never more than a hand full at any given time. the conditional clauses of the memorandum wereas as carefully crafted to washington's advantage as of those of congressional finally the tribe prevented thete council from endorsing the ideaa of making te south unit a tribal national park.. along held dream of many to be administered independently from pine ridge. many on the reservation acknowledged the tribal government is in need of

reform. without appropriation the vision of the scenic byway connecting theo badlands to the black hils and bringing prosperity to it's wake is a hallow wish. there are such organizes as the thunderle valley community development corporation. they continue toon work for meaningful change and advocate for it such as the restoration ofon bison. all that the sun, wind, and rain did to shape them the band lands is a bad piece of work. a landscape is a place that intergrades natural beauty and human usage in a way that benefits and support, not only those who come to camp, hike, and admire the sites but the communities that l lived there r

generations. if only it was so today in the badlands. thank you. k you. [ applause ] from that when i started this yer soi priscilla solis ybarra to you had the marikina solis, [ speaking non-english ] >> i'm priscilla. theac daughter of pinia. i'm from denton, texas. my mother was an immigrant and my father was a second generation mexican-american that

was a migrant farm worker. my personal land acknowledgement i travel from the lands of the wichita and cato affiliated tribes and the town i live and teach at the university of north texas is called denton, named after john b. denton. he committed genocide against indigenous people against the wichita and apache people. that was the time when the texas rangersce committed violence against my people, mexican-american people, and indigenous people. i'm grateful to be here. thank you for the invitation to join you today. i believe these moments, as i mentionedme earlier are very

important moments to reflect on what's come before. let me bring my presentation up here. >> okay, so, thank you you all. for the wonderful introduction of the panel and contextualize. they adhered to offer prospectives of what we have beeng talking about in the context of racial justice that was offered in an interview and introduction. i have been working for some years now on another american

controversial legacy. thee liapold family. theol stories of mexican-americn womanhood and abundance. that book offers the part of the tstate of the legacy. they see were all mexican-americans from new mexico. they became environmental scientist. three were inducted to national science. theal national academy of science. how can i get that wrong while inca d.c. national academy of signs and sciences. four ofs them were at

universities. this was the story of a mexican-american leading conversation thatat wasn't hiddn story. it's not well known. i have been working on that. i'm approaching it through a narrative style. some what memoiristic. it's about my mother and as susceptible. i'llre share with you today. excerpts are partpa of the manuscript. i put myself in the process access. c the change extracted. the summer of 2021 i felt a personal and interlectal place.

when the opportunity came to join the water walk this is a lead tradition honoring the life sustaining gift the first water walk lead by them josephine said what will you do. this is at the lake superio they walked around the entire lake eventually grandmother walked to the shoreline of all of the great lakes. altogether some 17,000 miles. before dying in 2019 she passed

the ceremony onto other leaders. based in minneapolis. they walked along the link of rivers. there was at the head waters of the river. turned andnd the rivers head water. everyone iss seeing and praise and speaks to the water. theyey followed the banks of the river and they camp along the way. the water walk falls into a

multiplicity of rhythm. the walkers who carry the water set the essential rhythm. beginning with a gathering and opening ceremony where they set their intentions for the day. the first walker carries the water for a mile. the group moved along as a caravan. they made a commitment when accepting theer uttering the phrase.th accepting theer uttering the war carrier to the next woman. this meantions i do it for the water. the date of the final ceremony they never stopped moving. they move along with it. it's an awe thing.

there was summer traffic and the walk i joined was the line three walk which was tracing the line ofof the pipeline. line three walked across the scars into the soil. injuries inflected. the pipeline construction and grit into the thesis. road in motor heat in 100-degree weather. we held steady. it straightened us as we carried it and cherished it enchanted as we walk. upon my arrival close for a while. the theater group. mostly listened.

theyey opened the space for majr reveal where i stood. she shared newcomers sometimes worry.yi they were singing and effective in thehe face of the large scal. i told her directly. they believe the water is stronger. upon reflection this ceremony allows for such commitment. take room. the other women too. it's a whole community. it's the district talents. i was be in the process of developing a new kinship. becoming part of a ceremony

family. as i i reflected on my experiene i'm grateful for the community that welcomed me this is a climate lesson. the removal from chronological time. the roughly 28 hours for which i joined the walk opened up into multiple dimensions. it defies my irrational mind so much learning, connection, and energy fit intoo a comparative small span of time. thef constant repetition of the cycle held me aloft of rhythm. the waysu you feel when floating on your back in calm waters. i was focused on the present moment. suspension might seem suddenly.i it's subversive sensibility to

cultivate. attunement to time. to community to commonsing if you will. t in contrast to the dominant values o of the late capitols neoliberal context we inhabit. a space of linearity. for many in the community the values of the commons are understood in relation to all of the land ethics. quote, e a thing is right when t preserved the integrity of the community andy. wrong when it ds otherwise. meant to believe he dependent account have ethics or presence in his vicks of the u.s. when he wrote the almanac. wrote, there is of yet nohen he

ethicre dealing with land and animals and plants thatt grow upon it. soon afterwards, he said the pueblo indians were there in time. it's's not because their land expired the second quote includes recognition of the care the land.d quote in both statements they reraise centuries of practice and ongoing presence. the passive structure of the statement and civil station expired is inaccurate and avoid confronting themm violence agait indigenous nations by colonizers. as they observed in the 2015em book memory, history and american landscape. the call for an extension of ethics and land relations seemed

to express a responsibility not yet embraced by the country. the traditions experienced. it's fully inhabited and intimate with presence. following the sequence. he considered the western approach of the land to the story he told and relegates indigenous knowledge and practices to the distance past. he proposed the land efforts as an innovation. first dealt with the ethics of individuals and that, quote, later e cessions dealt. for him ite was the next logicl step-in the development of ethics what he called the ethical sequence. asut pointed out when she asks,

although in a book concerned with, americans path leopoldd reliance on white supremity and linearity get in the way. his critiques of capitalism and call for aic land ethic. they were a accurate and too narrow the extensions of enslavement and colonization. the dynamics are what animate todays multicause and coalition

based envisions. and indigenous land restoration movement.an abolition feminism organized against the logics of enclosure, incarceration, and the commodification ofio bodies on e land. today'sda environmentalism is mt effective whenn locating itself along the spectrum with or especially by working alongside feminism and land with or restoration. the more clearly one can see the conditions between systems of oppression. the less likely one will get suckedne in the paradigm of single issue causes. leopold didn't make the land ethics e. he forms a land ethic. afterer living for years in arkansas and new mexico visiting his mexican-american in-laws and

homes and sheep ranchers. they restored a farm in wisconsin in pine forest. these are all lands soaked by generations of coloniale violence. he was still able to miss the connection. how closely did he listen to what the land was saying. this not onlyhi shows his avoidance of the land but embedded his blindness. how many generations of eraser helped set this for leopold and others. without calling as urgently for abolition and land back. on my first day of the water walk i watched the light shift from the dawning of day the let

will you tell up the details of the closing ceremony belonged to that place and time i felt overwhelmed with gratitude. it rained overnight cooling off for the next days walk and relieving the drought just a bit.bi i didn't stay long because i had commitments to get back to in wisconsin. isi carried the water twice more departing the walk. it was very difficult to me to leave. i said goods bye to sharon before her next turn to carry the water. i helder back tears when expressing what it meant to me.

i slowly started driving back to wisconsin. i was living with a new part of my heart open to a beautiful community and ceremony. i know, powerful sources gathered toor honor the water ad fight for the land. that knowledgeed offers a degree of comfort and straight. i ask s you to consider the ways that conventional american environmentalism to easily isolate the ethical concern from the land from efforts to distantial white supremacy. this ease of isolation reveals the violence at the core of that profsf isolation reveals difficult to eradicate.

the water walk-offered one example of how to operate forging solidarities is one way to dreamto a new world and creae newt ways of being built on ceremony and reciprocity. before i endul i'd like to recognize my partner chez is also a water walker. i'd like to thank her for being here with me. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> our closure. no pressure on you at all.

>> hello. welcome. before i begin, i'd like to thank the organizers for having me here and bringing me here. it's an honor to be here and pleasure to speak to the group. i'll shelton johnson. i have been a national park ranger w since 1987. isi worked here since 1984. i was born and raised in detroit michigan and had no childhood marble park visit and as a resultlt felt improvished. at some point i realized i'm haunted by a family. goes by a name of olsted. i must say you kept the spirit of my connection to the national world alive. i didn't realize this until i

received the invite to speak here. i wasn't conscious ofil that. i'm known for bringing back the history of the african-american soldiers that severed in yosemite national park in 1889 and 190 4. myle personal connection lead m, it's can't youd a dramatic pause.e. i'll i do it again incase you missed it. lead me to one day preform my buffalo soldierti presentation. at that point dayton duncan was the chair of a national park foundation. duncan is kin burns best friend. i wasof for the writer of the national park idea. afterwards he said something along the lines you shared with

the group you might get that in thefi film. thatin has a place in it. i annoyed him overtime asking if it was still there or would still happen. i love epic poems. especially v hoover and vergile. my background is literature as my father put it unemployment. he put it that way because he severed in the infull try and severed in the air force at vietnam. my brother severed in the navy. i come from a military family. that's why the history speaks to i come from a military family. it's in my blood and bones. so, when the buffalo soldiers story found me, i didn't discover it. i'm theth third ranger to tell e

storyy of african-american soldiers severing in yosemite and sequoia. fully a decade before the creation of the national park service.ic african-americans severing as some of the first park rangers in the world. there were onlyy a round a dozn national parks on planet earth around 1903 and 1900. it boggled my mind. ineg detroit it's illegal to say boggled if you are african-american. that will get you in trouble. it boggled my mind people who look like me were protecting the second andnd third oldest natiol park. the giant sequoia and yosemite valley, no, that's part of the state grant. when they were there, he the grove still belonged to the state of california. yosemite valley still belonged to the state of kale. state caln

the valley. when iy meet african-americans and they askth why go to a national park and i say, people whoo looked like you were some f the first protecters of national parks in the world. there is a pause. that's a pause of astonishment. we were not told as a people we had a role in the national park movement. it's a movement just like civil rights is a movement i think of waves. when i think of waves i think of water. we have beenwa riding the shock wave of change since the beginning of the republic. it moves so slowly and it goes back onn itself. when i think about myself and connections via the homesteads i realize they had always been there.

i'm a ranger today because my father severed in germany and i was there withh him with my mom and brother in germany. it was a family trip. this is the access ter park and high in the alps. there was also a trip to the black forest. if that hadn't happened i wouldn't be here speaking right now. iev wouldn't be a park ranger. a seed was p planted. when a seed is planted in a child's mind when you are 5 years oldre how many remember wn you were five years old? how many remember as if it was yesterday? i liked you from right off. those experiences don't go to the visual aspect of who we are as a human being. it comes within us its' like a seed that's been planted it will take it's time to blossom and who you were meant to be. i had no chance but to become a

park ranger. it wasn't destiny but preordained. at 5 years of age you are like this when you see something new. everything you see is something new. it's a look of wonder that's just like this. if someone handed you glasses. there you go. glasses. this might not seem miraculous. through the eyes of the child it'sac a miracle. that's a miracle. when you put a child like that, anyof child, in a grove of giant sequoia by moonlight to watch the eruption of old faithful. it's an experience getting into the cellular structure of the mind, body, and spirit. that's what happened to me. it became part of who i am.

the black forest became who i am. when the buffalo soldier story revealed itself to me it had the psychologicallo soldier story connection. that was before i realize it was connection to the homestead i arrivedwh in yosemite. not overwhelmede homestead i by the beauty of yosemite should seeker medical care. [ laughter ] >> i remember being on the bus that said it's not all of that. i thought, how sad. she thinks this is not allat that. yosemite is all of that and more we should have that on signs. i walked out by a painting. when idt saw the artwork, i

thought there they were just exaggerating this and tendency to moveth things around when i s in yosemite i walked out after closing the visitor center into ang thomas hill painting and realized, they are not romantic painters but realist. this is reallyap happening. when you see horsetail fall lit up by the last bite of the setting sun s and creates a fire fall but it's horse tail falls. you realize you are in an incredible place. i put itre this way the extraordinary is ordinary. rangers get like that when they are there. oh,, it's a bear, yes u it's a bear. we see them all of the time. oh, my gosh. it'sle a double rainbow. >> yes, it's a double rainbow.

welcome toom yosemite fall. humans can get used to any environment. reading and rereading the report reminded me of the value of national parks. the power of national parks and the democracy that's implicit in the foundation of national parks. i never thought when i read the phrase i was part of the people. i recognize when thomas jefferson wrote we the people american males free of debt. that's who he was referring to. not women or native-americans, or people of color. he was referring to the men in the room with him. tawhen you first read that and think that easterrable. oh, it's a good thing he was so vague. when i had a conversation with ken burns about this he said

along thee lines if they spelled out what they meant we'd be screwed. [ laughter ] >> the usage is the best way to describe that. we can reread the words and get a different connotation and denotation. it means something different today justdi like they have a differentw. meaning tomorrow. they evolve through time because all ideas evolve through time. the ideas that shape us are ideas we shaped in term. this is a powerful thing. i'm thinking this and communicating this becauseca i'm stillin astonished i'm wearing this uniform. stillin astonished i'm wearing woodfield. he's in the hall of fame. he wrote papa was a rolling stone.s he wrote for the supremes, diana

ross, and marvin gay. all i knew is he own bed a jaguar.. i didn't know what he did and i thought i'd be doing that. my background is music and poetry that's the landscape andp at no, sir fear in which i was raised. the only reason i'm hear i held on the memories o of germany. it was easy to do that, why? because on sundays in the summertimee, my grandparents wee blacknd indians from oklahoma. my t grandfather again. did i mention that. he's from a farming community and african and cherokee. my grandmother is from mccallister. she'san african and cherokee as well. my father side of the family is african and seminole. i havee relations on the side of

tears. i have relatives, relations that fought the u.s. army to a standstill and technically speakingve they never lost. it's the government realized we send troopsng to florida and ner make it out. but we sent more troops and they didn'tt. make it out. we better just stop this protocol. that's giving youes a bit of attitude.' that's partt of my background. when i tell the story of buffalo portrayed wasf my background. african and india. that would also be a story that's more true, because there is a complexity to all of us we usually don't acknowledgement we have a tendency to say there is a black guy, hispanic person, or native person. we are richer than that. when you look at the human

genome study the difference between dna is less than one-tenth -- 1%. we are a race of identical twins. in read that and thought why isn't this on the front page of the news paper. we are all the same family. why? the world doesn't work that way. when you read history you see the under pinnings of today in what wasrd yesterday and gets us back to the omsteady. igh arrive and read the report. if t i go back in time and hand the olmsted report to martin while in jail.in time and hand he never made it to a national park. he wasas potentially invited too toto a national park in canada. it never happened because the superintendent of the park realized there are many guests

from the deep south. it was a issue of if there might be m a slight they couldn't guarantee an impropriety. ironically, his home now is part of the national park system. there is all of this history. when i drove into this story and my own personal history i realized theyra were parallel tracks. when reading the book about the civil war or park idea. ie realized you have a presidet in the war of the 18 60s. you have a president or presidents in the 19 60s in the war. of vietnam where my father severed. you have the wilderness

act in the 19 60s. iea realized we hardly ever talked. you can't talk about america without talking about racee and space. y you a can't talk about america without talking about the west. that defines us. our epic poem should be based on lewis and clark. that's when things started going bad or good. what fascinated me about lewis and clark is the fact that york was there with him and became an interrupter for some of the groups he encountered. he had ait facility with language. partth of being african is the ability to adapt quickly or you will die. you have to make quick will die. that was survival. that's why my father left south

carolina. he found it safer to be in korea oror fullness of his humanity in south carolina. the war would be safer than beingg a citizen and claiming your rights of citizenship to give you an example of this. i wishan he lived long enough to see this i got a call and they picked my november eli didn't nowhereun it was. school for the blind in the late 1800 outside of spartanburg. this wasol the first state from the union. i had no idea from the history. most history is forgotten.

most history is lost. that's profound of itself. they built the first trails on the top a of mt. wit any. the first usablerst trails on wagon road they did these things but it wasn't acknowledged. that's the reason why i had no idea of this olmsted connection. i'm barely touching it because it was scary. i'm in new york with kin burns.r the first experience with central park w is with 20 or 30,000 people.

i'm backstage with carol king, counting crows, and alison crouse. alsoso peter and paul of peter, paul, and mary. i was like something is wrong. why am i hear. someone tapped me on the shoulder and it was david rockefeller. i worked with him at a mountain film festival. he said,nd i just wanted to say hi. i don't usually get e-mails or messages. there was ami connection between the rockefeller family and bull lo soldier. it's like having a conversation with your left finger without your thumb knowing about it. that's what i realized when i dove into the history of ipstewardship and protection ani

read and reread the report. i realize it would have been perfect if i handed it to martin luther king jr. my work is to bring people of color to the national parks and connect them toto their own inheritance. if they are are person of color they are least likely to have that. connection. i'm a bridge builder. when people ask what i do i'm an as astonishment facilitator. that's my job title. i say interpretive worker and they ask what language i speak. that throws them off more. nti'm an astonishment y facilitator. i had the experience of driving

down inn the southern part of te park and back to the valley daily foro two months. everyday everyday i drove through the tunnel. itst was by fredrick jr. when u drive-thru. anyone here driven through the tunnel at sunset? oh, yeah, you can't see it. you come thru itt and to pinpoit of light. it's like the birth canal if you have a memory of being in the womb w and the baby is coming. it looks like it's coming and it getser bigger and bigger and before you get to the opening water is dripping down and get on the windshield and there is thee falls to the right. there is elcaptain right three. there is an incredible valley. because of how you got there

this is how you see it or react to it. when peopleth take the drive it was different every single day. i'm i upset because i'm here. i'm missing something in yosemite. >> youye can see why he's our closer. [ laughter ] >> i'm justt getting warmed up. i . . . >> you have to wrap-up. [ applause ] >> the program said you got a park ranger but you can see, you did get a poet. his background. so, do we have a few moments for

q and a. should we rap up. we should probably wrap-up. let me wrap it up. i think what you heard from the panel was a challenge. i think, a number of questions on this the table for us to ponder. the sense ofti wonder and connection tost olmsed is for us to move forward. what m does that mean for us today. i think of young african-american students when in college. we lived on 110th and amsterdam within walking distance of the park and never saw the place. we took them every weekend to

visit this. i think shelton saying it's a wonder that i'm a park ranger. well, unfortunately, it's still a wonder that an african-american young man or would be considered to be a park ranger in yosemite or any other national park. on indian reservations and across the nation people are still walking, you know, thousands of miles to remind us of the nature which we have the olmsted lead us to observing special places. in the face of climate change and water scarcity that must expand. the idea of stewardship involvetions an inclusive idea. how do the compatriots of

today's olmsted here. i leave you with that as we look for a wonderful tour of the capitolca grounds. let's give the panel a wonderful applause. [ applause ] i too want to giv >> i'd o like to thank all of or terrific panels throughout the day. we have an e menace topic and could have gone on for sometime. i'd like to end where we began. about the 1865 yosemite report and the focus on the importance of access to nature that it's not the prerogative of the wealthy and privilege. there is an importance of public spaces or civic engagement or community andta

inclusivety. of olmstedndta and we are celebrating and rethinking and reimaging. i'm glad you were here. ii appreciate the architect of the capitol and i hope you will leave today's session, thinking again about the public spaces, ceabout inclusion, about mental and physical well-being. all issues thatis olmsted engagd in the 19 60s and we needs to keep engaging during our time. thank you for being here and enjoy the rest of your day and tours. we'd be happy to tell you the details once we conclude. [ applause ] healthy democracy doesn't just look like this but this. americans can see democracy at work. truly influenced a