By Audrey Peterman
Celebrating the National Park Service’s 108th anniversary Sunday, August 25, I gave thanks that the national parks have been my playground for more than one quarter of my life. An immigrant from Jamaica, I never heard the words “national” and “park” together until I was standing in one with my husband Frank, just after my 44th birthday in 1995. The awe-inspiring beauty I saw, looking out from the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, took my breath away, took my fear away, established my connection with God, and gave me a mission which endures to this day. Since then we’ve visited 185 of the 431 national park units.
But it’s not just the awe-inspiring beauty and splendor that keep us going back. It’s the opportunity to learn the heroic deeds of Black and Brown Americans and our inestimable contribution to the development of this country, far beyond enslavement. The combination of beauty and pride keeps me on a high beyond description. How else are you going to feel when you’re at George Washington Carver National Monument in Missouri, the birthplace of the great agricultural scientist, hoping to stumble upon his “Secret Garden?” Or when you’re standing among three-thousand-year-old giant sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park that were alive when Jesus walked on Earth, and know that they wouldn’t be here if not for the Buffalo Soldiers who protected them in 1903?
It’s a rarefied air that park lovers inhabit, and since I experienced it, I’ve been trying to share it with everyone.
In this ecstatic election season, it strikes me that the election of President Harris would dramatically change the complexion of the people we’ve met in national parks, who are mostly white or Asian. To me one of the greatest examples of environmental injustice is that Black and Brown Americans suffer the terrible health effects of deliberate pollution – corporations choose to situate their toxic operations in areas where people have the least power to resist – while there’s an almost invisible wall separating them from the opposite scenario if pure natural beauty and the cleanest air in our national parks.
I believe President Harris would lead the change to the culture of the Park Service and the other federal agencies that manage lands held in trust for the public, paid for with our taxes. I find it unbearable that the National Park System holds the key to many of the problems facing our country, and yet – crickets!
There is no explanation that makes sense to me for why representatives from the Park System are not on every media outlet telling people about the parks they manage and the stories they contain. Especially relevant at the moment is Appomattox Court House National Historical Park in Virginia, where the insurrectionist Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant April 9, 1865, ending the Civil War. The real story of what happened is so uplifting, as General Grant strove to protect some dignity for Lee as a fellow human being and leader of men. He gave him tons of food to feed his starving men, and Lee told them to return home and resume their lives as American citizens.
That “Gentlemen’s Agreement” signifying the reunification of our country punctures today’s narrative around “the Old South.” Yet hardly anyone knows that there is a place where you can go and experience it as close to when it happened as if it were yesterday. When the McLean House where the surrender took place was restored and opened as a national park in 1950, the ribbon was cut by direct descendants of General Grant and Robert E. Lee.
See? January 6, 2020 was not the first insurrection we put down. President Harris could help make sure that the Park Service carries out its mission to “promote . . . and preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.”
A few other national parks that contain vitally relevant information countering today’s “alternative facts:
Independence Hall at Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were debated and signed, records the truth that the founding fathers took great pains to establish our individual freedom to pursue whatever religion we choose. Thomas Jefferson in particular insisted that we should not have a state religion – so there goes the ideology about “Christian Nationalism.”
At Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, I’ve walked on the battlefields where African Americans first proved that given a chance, they would fight to the death for their freedom. This battle on September 17, 1862 resulted in the greatest number killed any single day of the Civil War. The demonstration of valor and the carnage led President Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. On those hallowed grounds, grief and gratitude filled my heart.
How would the country be different if everyone knows those stories, walks in those footsteps at some point in their lives? What would it be like if our children had this imprint on their minds? I love to visit schools and enjoy sharing the parks with children, but it gets me in the gut every time the white children are happily sharing which parks they love most, and the Black and Brown children stare at me blankly.
President Obama made a great start by offering Fourth Graders the opportunity to take their families to the park free of charge. Actually, the majority of national parks charge no fee at all – especially not the historic sites. There are 431 places around the country that are part of the National Park System, and you can buy an $80 Annual Pass that gives you and your carload of up to four other people unlimited access into everyone for a whole year. It’s like buying one movie ticket that allows you to see every movie playing, for a full year. There are also reduced and free rates for people depending upon age, ability and service. You can get all the information at the National Park Service website.
A common question often lobbed at our call for more inclusion is, “How are those people going to afford to go to Yellowstone?”
Well, not everyone needs to go to Yellowstone, although I highly recommend it. But everyone should know the wealth of opportunity that exists within a short distance to “level up” their lives with the benefits of 431 national park units spread out across the country. I’ve spoken at many schools where the white children are excited to share stories about the national parks they’ve visited, while the Black and Brown children mostly look at me blankly.
The national parks are the most economic, exotic vacation one can have. For an $80 Annual National Parks Pass, you can enter every single national park in the country with up to four other people in your car. It’s even less for veterans, those over 62 and people with physical challenges. Many parks don’t even charge entrance fees. Plus, you can stay at a luxury hotel in the park, a modest lodge, a tent or campground, depending on your budget and your choice.
I am hopeful that somehow this story will reach Presidential Candidate or President Harris so that she can break through the barriers that shield America’s most prized assets from segments of the public.
(Audrey Peterman is a longtime environmentalist, author and advocate for integrating the National Park System. Audrey@AudreyPeterman.com}