Lack of Funding Threatens the National Underground Railroad Network
According to recent Park Service financial projections, the Network to Freedom budget will be reduced by 72 percent by the year 2011, thus effectively terminating the program. A modest increase will save this vital program.
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February is National African-American History Month, an excellent time to celebrate America's rich cultural diversity by visiting the many national parks that celebrate the role of African Americans in U.S. history.
These sites are found all over the nation. Chances are, one is near you. For example, the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom includes scores of sites used during the era of slavery to help enslaved people escape oppression. Sites range from the Boston African American National Historic Site, which includes 15 pre-Civil War African American historical structures, to sites in Ohio and across the south to Texas.
African-American parks commemorate historical events that shaped America. The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama reminds us of the brutal struggle in the 1960s to ensure that all people enjoyed an equal right to vote. Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas; Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site in Arkansas; and the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site in Alabama commemorate the struggle for equality in education endured by African Americans into the 20th century.
Individual African Americans are celebrated at sites such as the Virginia birthplace of Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute; the Richmond, Virginia, house of Maggie L. Walker, the African-American who was one of the first woman to found and head a bank; and the Atlanta, Georgia, house in which civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was born and raised.
Commemorating African Americans in national parks is particularly appropriate because African Americans played a critical role in the birth of the National Park System. The Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry (Colored) served as the first "park rangers" in places such as Yosemite before there was a Park Service, and Captain Charles Young, an African American, was appointed acting superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant (now Kings Canyon) National Park in May 1903.
Although the National Park System protects the heritage of African Americans and other ethnic groups, recent surveys show that people of color remain largely absent from the national parks as visitors, subjects of interpretation, and contractors. The National Park Service itself has yet to diversify its ranks in a manner representative of the nation's changing population. This failing is reason for concern because, as a federal agency, the Park Service is tasked with maintaining U.S. natural and cultural resources for all Americans. By 2050, nearly half the U.S. population will be composed of people of color. If the Park Service continues its current trend, the agency risks becoming irrelevant to a large and increasing segment of the U.S. population that in time will assume a large portion of the responsibility for the protection of our natural and cultural resources.
