The Class
This class (UH 401) in The University of Alabama Honors Program, is charged with bringing together students from a wide range of disciplines to create work that makes a difference in the world around them; to create a Capstone Project. The goal is to work together in a transdisciplinary fashion, drawing on, but not relying solely on, their learning habits and academic skills from their major. They adapt those abilities, translating them into a shared understanding of a broad scholarship that addresses a specific topic or issue.
Students may work individually or as a group. This Fall semester (2022) We chose to work as a group.
In recent years classes in the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business have worked with local, regional and national clients to create sophisticated business-based plans to be used as a starting point for the client’s solution-building processes. Through the generous willingness of the business school’s Dr. Chapman Greer, a primary force behind many of these projects, this class was able to carve out a niche section of one such project.
It is that work that our small class takes on here.
History of Lack of African American Participation in OREs
There is ample evidence that minorities do not flock to outdoor recreation economies. Historically, and currently, minorities are a very small percentage of ORE users and have felt, and been, excluded since OREs first became a thing and contemporary local evidence supports this state of affairs.
States have used various strategies to increase diversity, including building new parks in underserved areas and creating panels to recommend ways to encourage people of color to participate in outdoor recreation. State parks give away free park passes, lend camping equipment, teach families how to put up a tent and make a campfire, invite community influencers such as pastors to visit parks, fund groups that organize outdoor trips for diverse groups of visitors, and sponsor Black History Month events. Since 2020, more state park systems have hired diversity and inclusion coordinators and are seeking to recruit more diverse staff and open new parks closer to urban areas to meet demand. And many leaders agree that if visitors see staff at state parks who look like them, they will feel more comfortable.
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A nationwide online survey of approximately 20,000 outdoor participants found that 70 percent of outdoor activity participants in 2013 were Caucasians. African Americans and Hispanic Americans had the lowest outdoor recreation participation rates, at 11 and eight percent, respectively (Christian and Scott).
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The underrepresentation of African Americans is an important issue as recreation agencies seek equality and justice in program offerings to make them more relevant for diverse populations. While, inevitably, the demographics, history, and region of the ORE will affect the “relevance” of what the ORE offers to minorities, there is a national discussion that will not avoid criticism. We will make the argument later that in the current highly charged public sphere the immense power of social media to ‘cancel’ may be a threat should social media influencers claim that any new Walker County area ORE ignores, or appear to ignore, minority concerns, whether that is the case or not.
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This is not an uncommon statement in research we have used: To ensure that recreational resources are enjoyed by the public, park and recreation agencies should attempt to make themselves relevant to historically disfranchised populations. Thus, an adequate understanding of African Americans’ underrepresentation is imperative for environmental justice and the equal rights of all citizens in addition to helping public agencies better serve a diverse clientele.
Native American History in Walker County
The land in and around Walker County was populated before white settlement, and that ancient connection may help conceive, design, build and promote an ORE. An acknowledgment of the ancient Native American tribes - and we note that the current Native American population of Walker County is only a trace of what it was - that lived on the ORE land and its adjacent environment is not only a demonstration of respect for the land’s history but also potentially good marketing. Evidence suggests that promoting the development’s attention to this ancient connection (and other minority connections) during the planning and building phases not only potentially helps future income but can also be part of publicity campaigns, school/education connections, events, etc.
There is a historic Native American settlement located near where the Walker ORE will be created. In the past, the NPS has been criticized for not properly displaying the history of Native Americans. They responded in 1959 by acquiring sites of the historic conflict between the US Government and Native Americans. This includes Horseshoe Bend National Military Park in Tallapoosa County, AL. The premise was to detail the conflict between the two groups and to explain the battle plans of each side. They also preserved artifacts from the site. It is important to note that this was the site of the single biggest victory for the US Government in the Alabama Creek War, and the one that ended the main Red Stick rebellion (Black).
Black Warrior Town was burned in 1813 as part of the Alabama Creek War. John Coffee commanded the forces that burned it. Davy Crockett was part of those forces. The residents fled just before the forces’ arrival. Before it was burned, it was a regular residential area until the Alabama Creek War. At that time, it was believed but not confirmed that the Red Sticks were using it as a home base (Crockett).
This places Black Warrior Town in a grey area. Should we choose to not acknowledge it, we run the risk of being accused of erasing the history of the area. If we reference it as a place of residence, we risk being accused of ignoring why it is no longer inhabited. If we acknowledge it as a place of battle, we likely avoid accusation, but also erase the history of the area that shows Native Americans as more than a subject for destruction.
Alternatively, if the location of Black Warrior Town received some form of acknowledgment of the entirety of its history, the Walker ORE would likely be subject to less criticism for not including a reference.