When Rodney Smith’s uncle invited him to go to Sedona for a hike, Rodney, who is Black, said to himself, “Hiking? That sounds like something white people do.”

Rodney went on the hike. And it changed his life. “I loved everything about it. I loved the scenery. I loved being outdoors. I had that wonderment of a kid… I said, ‘this is my new thing,’ and I got out and started hiking on my own.”

This was following Rodney’s release from prison in October 2021. “I was forced to reconsider everything about my life, about my thinking, about the man I was and the man I wanted to become,” he says. “I realized that a lot of what I had been doing was because it was expected, and it was what everyone else was doing. I hadn’t really figured out who I was and when I got out, I told myself I was going to start trying new things.”

In addition to taking up hiking, he started eating a plant-based diet — partially inspired by the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the Bible, who “looked healthier and better nourished” after 10 days of eating only vegetables than any of the young men who ate from the king’s table. On his ninth day of eating vegan, Rodney was in line at a store describing to someone how he felt “brighter and more energized” from his diet.

A woman overheard and invited him to a community garden in South Phoenix, where Rodney is from.

Again, Rodney thought to himself, “this couldn’t be for me.” He says, “gardening seemed like something for Martha Stewart… a suburban soccer mom activity.”

But when he arrived at the garden, he was immediately overwhelmed by the beauty and the connection he felt.

When Rodney received his prison sentence, he did not cry. When he was inside and his father and both grandmothers passed away, he did not cry. When he opened himself up to the connection with nature he felt in the garden, run by Phoenix’s Tiger Mountain Foundation, he finally cried.

“I’ve heard, ‘if you’re not crying, you’re not healing’ … I found a lot of healing in the garden. That feeling of connection made me say, ‘oh my gosh, I feel like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.’ ”

Now Rodney does community outreach for the foundation, which works to empower communities through community gardens and other cultivated “spaces of opportunity.” And he volunteers with his church’s Adventurers Club, part of the church’s youth ministry.

When Rodney left prison, he felt like he could not go back home to South Phoenix, a particularly under-resourced part of the city, because there was nothing good there. Now, he says, “with the garden spaces I work in, I don’t leave South Phoenix … and I am one of the community leaders helping to provide resources and opportunity to people who are like I was. I see people come to the garden and shed those tears just like I did. I see people struggling with anxiety and depression and addiction, they come to the garden and they find tranquility and peace. “

Less access to parks, green spaces

We know that many people of color, and especially Black people, face unique barriers to enjoying nature. We often have less access to parks and green spaces where we live. And we face discrimination. You might recall the story of Christian Cooper, the Black bird watcher who had the police called on him for simply requesting that a white woman leash her dog — which she was legally required to do — in New York’s Central Park. The gravity of that racist incident, in which the woman who called the police lied and said Cooper was threatening her, was driven home by George Floyd’s murder by police in Minnesota later that same day, Memorial Day 2020.

For all the barriers Black people face, we should not let social stigmas and stereotypes infect our own minds and keep us from the benefits of nature and being outdoors. Smith’s story is so important because it not only speaks to the healing power of nature, but to the power of challenging absurd stereotypes about where different kinds of people “belong.”

There are opportunities to connect with nature everywhere, even in big cities. For example, the Chicago Park District’s Outdoor and Environmental Education Unit has nature programs for all ages that include camping, fishing, and gardening. Its Nature Oasis program provides outdoor experiences and environmental education to nearly 18,000 city residents a year. Another option might be a local community organization like Tiger Mountain, or connecting with an outings group through your Sierra Club state chapter or other environmental organizations. And federal initiatives, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $1 billion urban forestry investment to expand access to trees and green spaces, could mean even more opportunities on the way.

Ben Jealous is the executive director of the Sierra Club and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

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