One of the worst mass shootings in American history seems to have opened emotional fissures in a way other tragedies have not. Searing, heart-rending words pour from pens and keyboards across the country. At a time of such deep spiritual pain, we look to history for comfort. We also engage our communities in dialogue. How do we heal from this and move forward? What can be done, at long last, to prevent Orlando from ever occurring again? Fortunately, we have places we can go to heal, as well as to interact with history and community in meaningful and often transcendent ways — our national parks. At other times of great anguish, the parks have been there to free minds and comfort souls. They are our places of peace, understanding, learning and reconciliation.
Each year, the National Park Service holds events that engage communities and bridge sometimes bitter divides between citizens. I was fortunate to help organize such an event in November at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, the “Social Conscience Gathering.” There, before a packed audience, Minnejean Brown-Trickey, a strong-willed member of the Little Rock Nine, recalled what it was like being a child in the midst of a racial maelstrom. The fluorescent lights of the banquet hall dimmed as the spotlight focused on Brown-Trickey, her sister Phillis Brown and daughter Spirit Trickey. The three reminisced as they might around the Thanksgiving table. It was like we were extended members of their family, laughing and crying right along with them. The stage disappeared. History was healing all of us.
For three days, amid devastating news reports from Paris about terrorist attacks and the subsequent wave of disquieting xenophobia, the conscience of America found an outlet in the heartland. In addition to members of the Little Rock Nine, there were Native American leaders, pastors and youth from Ferguson, FBI agents and police officers from Arkansas, and LGBT activists from across the country. We talked and listened, laughed and cried, argued and suggested. We exchanged telephone numbers and email addresses. We empowered the youth present to channel their fears into action.
At the center of it all was Robin White, the park site’s superintendent. White is soft-spoken but strong-willed. She is a spiritual leader, like Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson and Dorothea Lange before her. Community engagement and historical reflection, she remarked, is the job of the National Park Service. So, she said, is engaging marginalized youth, who are often disconnected physically and intellectually from historical dialogue.
Both of these goals have been well articulated in park service documents, but there seem to be substantial hurdles in the way of achieving them. In its 2008-09 report on diversity, the park service emphasized that African Americans and Latinos were underrepresented in park attendance, followed by other ethnic groups. One of the biggest factors behind the attendance gap seems to be a perceived disconnect between the spiritual and practical needs of diverse communities and what the parks provide. So, at its 100th anniversary, the National Park Service continues to challenge itself to “connect all Americans to their heritage resources in a manner that resonates with their lives, legacies and dreams and tells the stories that make up America’s diverse national identity.”
The National Park Service is one of the most important resources we have for spiritual healing. It may just be our salvation. In 1908, Teddy Roosevelt wondered “what (would) happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.” A century later, we wonder what will happen when our public schools have been privatized, our communities are further ravaged by mass shootings and our planet is plagued by climate catastrophe. Hopefully, our national parks will be there to remind us that people like the Little Rock Nine were able to change the world, and that modern generations can do the same.
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