Strange Fruit: Race, Violence, and Environment

CAMPAIGN TWO: Strange Fruit: Race, Violence, and Environment


For many communities the violence of racial hatred committed in the woods still echoes through our collective memories. This post traumatic stress negatively impacts our relationships to the earth and to one another. Collectively we remain disconnected from the benefits of the outdoors which results in multiple threats to our physical and mental health, including obesity, diabetes, stress, and no relief from ADD and ADHD. The health of our communities and our youth depends on creating safe experiences for them to thrive, including the woods. Through truth, reconciliation and empowerment we can find solutions for healing our attitudes towards the woods.

Join us for this community conversation with Theryn B. Kigvamasud’Vashti of CARA, Delbert Richardson, collector of the American History Exhibit: The Unspoken Truth, performances by Griot Works Youth Troupe, a. k. Allin, and host Jourdan I Keith. Learn what you can do to protect our social and natural Eco-systems.

The Problems

African Americans are missing the opportunities to reap the economic, social, physical and psychological benefits provided by wilderness, urban forests, and community green spaces. This is a crisis given the rise of obesity, diabetes, and urban stress which disproportionately impact African Americans.

Statistically, despite similar financial means as people of Chicano and Latino descent, African Americans do not use wilderness recreation areas at a rate that represents their population even when they live near the public lands.

The legacy of race violence and the resulting psychological trauma, as well as social barriers may subconsciously contribute to the disenfranchisement of many African Americans in feel the beauty and serenity of wild and wooded places in the U.S.


Acknowledge and memorialize the ancestors who suffered unspeakable atrocities in the woods of this country so that the healing can begin.

Publicize and celebrate the positive experiences and powerful ancestral legacy of our forefathers and mothers in conjunction with our youth.

Co-create UWP’s Leaders in Training Seminars by donating your time and expertise to design and facilitate workshops.

Provide Scholarship funds for technical training such as CPR, Wilderness First Aid and Wilderness First Responder.

Join the campaign to reclaim a healthy connection to the earth.

The Action Campaign

Create and distribute positive Afro-centric media about the value of urban forests and wilderness in our lives.

Organize so that urban density plans do not sacrifice access to urban forests in low-income neighborhoods.

Demand that the persistent toxin of inequality which can be linked to health disparities be accounted for in EPA regulations.

Require that the Endangered Species Acts protections expressly include threatened and endangered peoples, cultures and habitat (traditional foods, air , water and shelter), especially those impacted by multiple threats of inequality.

Volunteer your expertise to help create the media campaign, compile research materials, make a You Tube video, design a web site, make stickers, raise money. Be Part of the Solution.

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