We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kristen Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kristen below.

Kristen , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

As the Co-Founder of Our Parks Too! our goal is to change the perception of who “belongs” in the outdoors, and increase the representation of Black people in the National Parks system while celebrating the Black history that exists within those lands. There are other organizations around the nation doing similar work to make outdoor recreation more inviting for communities of color, and we often get labeled broadly even though each organization has their own niche and ours focuses specifically on National Parks and Black history. Since our work is primarily photo journalism, we also get placed into the box of “social media influencers” though in reality we are not hyper-online. We are full time scientists and educators who happen to enjoy exploring these lands in our spare time and simply want to see more people from ur community doing the same.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a biologist from Baltimore, MD. My pandemic-induced cabin fever led me to venture outdoors to find community in wide-open spaces. Spending that time exploring trails in MD scratched a few itches, I was able to connect with loved ones and the risk of contracting COVID-19 was decreased, In 2022 I joined an Environmental Leadership cohort with a Washington, DC based outdoor organization focused on increasing communal outdoor recreation opportunities for Black and brown people. We visited three National Parks during my time as a cohort member, and during each of these excursions I noticed that we the only other Black people we would come across were those in our group. This sparked my idea for Our Parks Too! our mission is to increase Black visitation, access, stewardship, and ownership of our natural environment, by using photo journalism to showcase the beauty of Black joy in the National Parks system. To memorialize the historic contributions and connections to public lands in and around National Parks, and to catalog a network of resources to address traditional barriers of accessing nature for the Black community. Im most proud that since starting this initiative we have secured the resources to visit 18 parks bringing other Black 1st time National Park visitors along with us, and conducted a gear drive to decrease the burden of purchasing some essential outdoor gear for our guests.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The goal of this initiative is to diversify outdoor recreation in the National Park System. The creation of the National Parks system coincided with the era of Jim Crow laws, the institutional racism and discrimination due to these laws resulted in African Americans being barred from full access to National Park lands. Despite this systematic exclusion, African Americans made essential contributions to the National Park System; not limited to their participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the land management performed by the Buffalo Soldiers. These contributions must not be forgotten. Today, African Americans remain largely underrepresented as visitors and employees in the national parks. Studies show that Black Americans visit national parks at lower rates than other racial and ethnic groups. Black visitorship hovers around only 4-6% of total visitors, and only about 6% of the total National Parks workforce is African American. With the known health benefits of spending time outdoors and the health disparities within communities of color, the need for an Our Parks Too! and other similar initiatives is clear; we are 14% of the population and should be represented in National Park recreation and use as such.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Our resilience is firmly rooted with the support of our community. Our Parks Too! has been featured in several media outlets and we get many comments from white readers on these posts, questioning the need for such a project, asking why the outlet has chosen to highlight our work, and invalidating our experiences as Black women navigating these outdoor spaces. Even with so much evidence for why our work is timely and meaningful such racist comments still sting and take a mental toll. In times like these I am so grateful for our community, as they come to our rescue without fail to uplift our work, and even go as far as to reply to derogatory and invalidating comments in our defense. Having these people in our corner, gives bolsters us to continue on with our work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ourparkstoo.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourparkstoo/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtg_MKpN8Rksm1CLoj-OFuFv09dCaqtpB