Palaces

This photograph was taken in the fall of 2021 during an almost month-long adventure in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. A cacophony of color, textures, and life harmonious in its beauty, this woodland presents the palace room of its kingdom. While inviting to some, the outdoors can seem like a mausoleum to Black people.
 
Forest trails and state and national parks are almost exclusively found in rural and predominantly white-populated areas. These areas can range from uninviting to overtly dangerous for Black people. If you drive from Asheville to Roan Mountain, you will find yourself on the long winding road of NC-261, which becomes TN-143 when you cross the Tennessee border. On that road, you will find homes enshrined in Confederate flags of all sizes in an almost fanatical fashion. The only time I’ve felt unsafe on a trail was at a location 10 miles from Roan Mountain State Park. After driving through a neighborhood riddled with confederate flags, I arrived at my destination, a trail that started on the side of the road in this neighborhood. I sat in my car and weighed my options. After five minutes of playing scenarios out in my head, I left and went to another trail in a more populated area.
 
These situations arise in various ways all too often. In September 2020, a freshly killed and skinned black bear pelt was left hanging on a welcome sign for the Great Smoky Mountains with a sign that read, “from here to the lake Black lives don’t matter.” Even though the Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in the country, little reporting was done on this incident. On the July Fourth weekend of the same year, a Black activist was viciously assaulted in Indiana and threatened with death by lynching by a group of white men while on a trail on public property. In 2018 in Colorado, a Black hiking group led by Black women had the sheriff’s office called on them for simply hiking in what the accusor called a mob. These are only a few of the countless dangerous and life-threatening, and in some cases, life-ending encounters Black people have experienced in the outdoors.