Audrey Peterman of Earthwise Productions Challenges People of African Descent to Explore the Great American Outdoors

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Audrey Peterman, one half of Earthwise Productions in Atlanta, Georgia. Earthwise Productions' mission statement is quite simple: to increase awareness and involvement in enjoying and safeguarding our environment, particularly among underrepresented segments of America's culturally diverse population. In essence, that encompasses people of African descent who have traditionally not taken advantage of what the Great American Outdoors have to offer. The lack of black support of our national parks caught Earthwise Productions' attention and they set out to change that. Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson, also sounded the alarm. He told ABC News, "there's not a shortage of African Americans at Disneyland or Disney World.""But when you visit these wild places, like Zion and Arches and Yellowstone, that's when you start seeing less cultural diversity."Johnson believes that this disconnect has roots in slavery and its alteration of African Americans view of natural lands.

The reality is that blacks played an integral role in national parks eons ago. For example, the Buffalo Soldiers, black cavalrymen from Company H, 24th Infantry Regiment, were briefly charged with protecting the Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and General Grant (Kings Canyon) National Parks. These soldiers can be considered as America's first park rangers. The contribution of Captain Charles Young, a Buffalo soldier, should be noted. He served with Troop I, 9th Cavalry Regiment in Sequoia National Park during the summer of 1903, and was the third African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy. At the time of his death, he was the highest ranking black in the U.S. military. He made history in Sequoia National Park by becoming Acting Military Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Parks. Young was also the first African American superintendent of a national park. The early contributions of blacks in our public lands are virtually unknown and Earthwise Productions mission is to bridge that divide.

Earthwise Productions, which publishes the "Pickup & Go!" periodical, as well as offer consulting services to government agencies, environmental non-profits and other entities, plus does speaking engagements, has a clientele that is a veritable Who's Who list and has included stints with the EPA and the Audubon Society. To get a pulse on the great outdoors and living as one with the environment, tune in to this fascinating interview I conducted with Audrey Peterman.



Here's an excerpt of the interview:

The Hinterland Gazette:  What led to the start of Earthwise Productions?

Audrey Peterman:  Well, it's a really wonderful story. In 1995, my husband Frank and I, we had only been married three years, decided to take off on a journey driving around the country and hitting some of the well-known spots such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite. So we drove around the country for eight weeks and we discovered these beautiful places. We then discovered that they were a part of the national park system. We became so passionate about the nature and the environment. We started our company to bring information about these places, particularly to the black population in America. While we saw hundreds of white people and foreign tourists from all over Europe and Asia in the national parks, we saw less than a handful of blacks in these parks. We began our company to bridge this divide.

The Hinterland Gazette: There are so many natural beauties that abound in this country and African Americans, as you have said, rarely take advantage of them. What is your message to them?

Audrey Peterman:   One of the things we uncovered is a lot of black people say "hey look, we get treated so shabbily in America, as a general rule, so when we are on vacation we don't want to have to deal with that kind of thing. So we would rather go to the Caribbean or Europe where we are not going to get treated as a second class citizen." At the same time, Frank and I never experienced any negative or derogatory treatment. People were really freaked out when we told some of our friends and families that we were going to camp out in the woods. We have been to 163 national parks and there are 394. Our goal is to go to all 394 and I hope by then they will add some more to the system.

Hinterland Gazette:  How does one get involved in going to these different parks.

Audrey Peterman:  Get our book. Get our book. That is the first starting point. It came out in September. It is called "Legacy on the Land: a Black Couple Discovers our National Inheritance and Why We Should Care." It's available at Amazon.com. The book starts off with our trip and then it describes the amazing beauty that we saw and then it describes the unbelievable black history that we found in the national parks. It tells you pretty much where to go, what to do and how to become involved in the movement.

Hinterland Gazette:  What kind of things have you found that relates to the black experience in these parks?

Audrey Peterman:  This is so exciting. We have found black history from the farthest point off the coast of Florida all the way up to Alaska! I am telling you the feelings of liberation we have as black people in America just to know what our ancestors did. For example, there is a park named the Dry Tortugas National Park, off the coast of Florida. You actually have to take a boat from Key West to get there. It's one of the premier diving destinations in the world. In that park is a fort called Fort Jefferson, which was actually built by our enslaved ancestors in the 1830s as part of the coastal defense system for America because it straddles the Caribbean, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, that's the place where Dr. Mudd, who was implicated in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, that's the place where he was imprisoned.

Then coming all the way up the coast from Florida, all across the country, we traced unbelievable stories in black heroism, such as, there's a family named the Jones family, a black family, that owned islands in Biscayne Bay from 1897. Who would have thought black people owned islands in America from 1897 and in fact, we told this story to Ken Burns, when he was doing his documentary about America's national parks and he included that story in the series that has been on PBS. The family has two sons, King Arthur and the other named Sir Lancelot.......

Closing thoughts....

I was absolutely impressed with Audrey Peterman and the mission of Earthwise Productions. This interview comes at a pivotal time in the black experience in America. The first African American, Barack Obama, has ascended the presidency and we have made a lot of inroads in areas that were not traditionally frequented by people of African descent. We should recapture the spirit, the drive and the fortitude of our ancestors such as Israel Lafayette Jones and his wife Mozelle, who thrived on Porgy Key and other islands off the coast of Florida. An initial $300 investment in land made by the Jones, ended into total resale of nearly $1.5 million. The land was sold to make way for the Biscayne National Park. It was a mind boggling feat because, who would have thought that African Americans living in the South, who were barely able to make a decent living, could ever become millionaires! This is our history and our connection to the public lands in America. Had I not interviewed Audrey Peterman, I would have never had the desire to seek out the history of African Americans in relations to the creation of our national parks.

Autographed Copy of "Legacy on the Land"

A free autographed copy of "Legacy on the Land" will be sent to the first person who comments on this interview and the article.

**Note: The first few minutes of the audio are audible, but a little choppy. We are working to correct that. The rest of the interview is clear.**