Posted on 05/25/2008 12:13:46 PM PDT by anymouse
The throngs filling campgrounds across America this weekend will include hardy outdoors types and those who prefer creature comforts, but they'll have at least one important thing in common: Nearly all of them are white.
A small but committed group of campers is trying to change that by growing a generation of black campers, one person at a time.
The National African-American RVers Association is composed almost exclusively of black people who camp, although it includes a few whites and Hispanics. The group doesn't have much money to buy ads or solicit new members.
Instead, it always holds its major national gathering in July when schools are out so children and grandchildren can come along.
"We cater mostly to the family so that our young people will be able to grow up understanding the outside world and seeing the creation that God has created for us and how beautiful it is," said the Rev. John Womack of Boston, the group's president.
Getting more blacks into the woods would mean breaking decades of stereotypes and overcoming a long-standing leeriness that members say many have about camping. Bad things happen to black people in the woods, the story goes, and they can't afford recreational vehicles.
At least that's the way Lawrence Joseph always heard it, and it all gets a chuckle from him as he shows off his 32-foot Winnebago Brave, one of about 160 campers packed into the River Country Campground for the Southern regional rally of the black campers' association. Joseph bought his RV four years ago seeking the same things that draws whites to camp.
"I like the closeness, the friendship. You meet people from different venues, from different professions," he said. "I have two kids, and it gets them out of the house from playing video games."
Womack and his wife Bertha got hooked on camping years ago during a cross-country trip with their three children in 1983. He said outdoors recreation wasn't very practical or attractive to blacks for generations.
"In the early years we didn't have the resources to camp. We didn't have the time off to camp," said Womack. "And for many people, life itself was camping. Our homes were like tents. We weren't anxious to run from one set of woods to the next."
Lemuel Horton, Southern regional director for the black campers' group, said that for years many blacks were simply afraid to camp.
"They felt like a black person out by yourself just wasn't personally safe," said Horton, of Decatur, Ga. "But traveling all over the United States and Canada since the 1970s, I've had no problem."
Joseph said the idea of camping creates an uneasiness among some blacks that's strong enough to prevent many from ever venturing into the outdoors, yet difficult to explain.
"It's just a feeling that it's not somewhere they ought to be," said Joseph.
A survey commissioned by industry groups estimated that as many as 30 million Americans have camped, but only 300,000 of them are black, said Linda Profaizer, president of the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds.
Profaizer said tailgating at football games is popular among black RV owners including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who travels the country in a big motor coach with his wife when not deciding cases.
But most blacks have been slow to adopt camping as a hobby, she said.
"My thought is that they just have not been exposed to it," she said.
States including Washington and California have launched programs to get minorities interested in outdoors recreation including camping, and so has the National Park Service.
Longtime park ranger Shelton Johnson, who is black, said he began telling the story of black buffalo soldiers at Yosemite National Park in California partly to lure more black visitors. Johnson has seen more minority visitors in recent years, but there's still not many.
"As far as I'm concerned it's a major issue," said Johnson. "As the so-called browning of America goes on, if black people and other people of color aren't visiting campgrounds and parks, how is the National Park Service going to reach the public in the future?"
Founded by a small group of enthusiasts 16 years ago, the National African-American RVers Association has about 3,000 member families nationwide. Most are in the warm-weather South, and hundreds of rigs show up at regional gatherings called rallies.
Walk around a campground filled with black people and it's a lot like being in a campground filled with whites. Members arrive in everything from small, Katrina-style trailers to plush motor homes that sell for more than $1 million. Friends sit in lawn chairs between campers telling stories and laughing while kids fish and ride bicycles. Cooking is a daylong activity.
Gladys Curtis of Houston is active in both NAARVA and mostly white camping groups, and she has noticed at least one difference between the way the races camp.
"When we go to the (white) rallies we hear a lot of country and western," said Curtis, president of a black camping group from Texas. "We've had a Motown review, big band, blues. Not a lot of country."
On the Net: National African-American RVers Association, http://www.naarva.com
I'm sure Martin Luther King Jr. is elated by this great step forward in civil rights.
If it is a verifiable fact that most campers are white, how on Earth is it a stereotype?
My wife and I have always investing in camping adventures at $79 per night (either Holiday Inn or Courtyard), and you never have to rinse off the points or re-fold them when you get caught in the rain. Just a different life-style, I guess.
Well, that explains at least part of this. Most of the time it is families who tend to go out camping, and blacks have a lower amount of family units relative to whites due to their higher out of wedlock birthrates and of course divorce, which affects all races.
“Walk around a campground filled with black people and it’s a lot like being in a campground filled with whites”
And I wonder why they think it wouldn’t it be like this?
If I were a hip-hop rapper dude, for example, I probably wouldn't want to be labeled a 'camper.'
And what's with the label 'camper,' anyway - will we now have a 'camper' voting demographic?
This could only have come from the 'label conscious liberal.' (Oh no! - more labels...)
I did a great deal of serious backpacking when I was a Boy Scout, but as an adult I also found myself preferring to camp out in hotels (three-star minimum).
A site i frequent...it’s truth...occasional acceptances....... www.trailjournals.com
Can't we all just get along?
“”As far as I’m concerned it’s a major issue,” said Johnson. “As the so-called browning of America goes on, if black people and other people of color aren’t visiting campgrounds and parks, how is the National Park Service going to reach the public in the future?””
They could rotate folks in public housing through campgrounds a couple weeks a year. How about paying people to visit the parks?
Sometimes I think that the government just doesn’t care about this issue.
I have a black friend who defines “camping” as anyplace that doesn’t have cable. He regularly tells me I’m crazy for enjoying that sort of thing.
What a weird statement. I can't quite decide if it's due to amazement on the part of the writer or what. And those unfortunate folks camping in their "Katrina-style" trailers ... who's stereotyping whom, here?
He regularly tells me I’m crazy for enjoying that sort of thing.
been told that a million times.
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I guess that depends on where you live. Most of my black friends and acquaintances have numerous extended family that they see often. They’re not all far-flung like many of my white friends’ families are. Sunday dinners with several generations together, sisters traveling on girl tripos, shopping, lots of cousins to grow up with and play with. They all have a dozen aunties and uncles that were part of the close family. Before she retired, one of my coworkers didn’t pass a week without a family member stopping by to say hi (at work.) When I think of close families, I often think of the black families I know.
You should tell him that his TV watching is making him crazy.
What are they babbling about? I’ve seen lots of black campers. I’ve been camping and fishing with black friends and they enjoy roughing it (within reason of course) just like us white folks. No motor-homes or trailers involved.
I was just going by the statistics(not sure from where) I heard on the radio a while back regarding broken families and out of wedlock childbirths.
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