Chicago’s south side is home to some of America’s most fascinating and important stories. The Pullman Historic District is where, in 1880, George M. Pullman built the country’s first planned model industrial town. It was also home to the nation’s first African-American union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the pivotal “Pullman Strike” of 1894. These important “firsts” speak to Pullman’s national significance and why so many Chicago leaders have come together to work to establish it as the city’s first national park.

Last week, NPCA led a group of Chicagoans to Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts to see some of the possibilities for Pullman.

For more than 30 years, the people of Lowell have worked to preserve and interpret the history of this New England mill town, once known for its “mill girls” and immigrant laborers. The sights and sounds of Lowell would lead you to believe that you’ve set foot in the mid-19th century. The old brick mill buildings, the flowing waters of the Merrimack Canal, and the humming of century-old looms make Lowell a living exhibit telling the stories of what was once America’s booming textile industry. Riding the trolley through downtown Lowell and speaking with business and community groups about the spirit of cooperation provided the Pullman group with the ability to see what we are working toward together.

Imagine the possibility to breathe life into Pullman’s large factory shops, to hear the tick-tock of the administration building’s large clock tower, and to pave the way for hundreds of thousands of visitors to come each year and experience the history of labor and industry. Pullman shares an important piece of American history and establishing a national park there will ensure these many stories are told for years to come.

We gained a ton of knowledge from our visit to Lowell and can better envision a national park at Pullman. Now the real work begins.

Related posts

• “Chicago’s Pullman Partners See Possibilities for Pullman’s Future at Lowell Massachusetts Historical National Park,” PR Web, May 6, 2013.
• “Can Pullman’s Planned Community Become Chicago’s First National Park?” Park Advocate, February 8, 2012

On a bus in Montgomery, a lone woman refused to be sent to the rear. In the dry desert east of Yosemite lie the foundations of an internment camp where thousands of Americans were imprisoned simply because of their ancestry. In a small, drab bar on Christopher Street in New York City, a handful of young men refused to be harassed by the police. These sites were all turning points in American history. They may not be as beautiful as the Tetons, or have the cachet of Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, but they are each, in their own way, as important in our nation’s unfolding history. 

Originally built as stables in the 1840s, the small two-story building had multiple lives until it was opened as the Stonewall Inn in 1967. Soon it was the largest gay establishment in New York City, if not the nation. Frequently the target of harassing police raids, patrons erupted in rebellion on a hot June night in 1969. Dozens of gay youths refused to be picked on anymore. Rallying hundreds more, they turned the tables, trapping a handful of police officers inside the bar.

Sadly, not long after the riot, the bar closed, and over the next few decades the building languished in various guises, including a shoe store. But in the ensuing decades, a more enlightened society, growing gay pride, and an increasing appreciation of its iconic value led the bar’s stature as a symbol to grow. In 2000, the building was included with Christopher Street as part of the area’s National Historic Landmark designation. In 2007, the building was renovated again and re-opened with its old name, the Stonewall Inn.

Inside the bar today, a small mahogany countertop extends along the west wall facing just a dozen stools, another half-dozen booths line the opposite wall, and a small mirror-ceilinged gathering room remains in the back. It’s just a quarter the size of Boston’s famous bar from the television show Cheers, and when I last went in, it was still a neighborhood hang-out. At midday, a sole bartender was plying her trade to two locals. Stonewall could not be farther from the grandeur of the Grand Canyon. 

Yet, this unlikely site is more than worthy of being a national park. Stonewall Inn is the iconic anchor of a great arc of history that passes on through Harvey Milk, the proliferation of gay rights marches and parades in 1970s, the Rainbow Coalition, the incredible losses of the AIDS epidemic, and the profound shift toward the acceptance of same-sex marriage today. Like the history behind many sites, from Custer’s Last Stand to Manzanar, you don’t have to agree or disagree to recognize it. 

In this light, I urge you to email your Congressman and Senators (find them on our website) and ask that the Stonewall Inn be incorporated into our National Park System. For as then-Assistant Secretary of the Interior John Berry (now Director of the Office of Personnel Management) said in 2000, ”Let it forever be remembered that here—on this spot—men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose, and love whom our hearts desire.”

This story is reprinted from the most recent Northeast Regional Field Report. Read the rest of the issue on NPCA’s website.

Here are five interesting facts that stood out for me as I read through the report:

1. Civil War tourists love learning and tend to have cash to spare: They earn a higher household income, on average, than the general population, and more than half are college graduates, compared to the nationwide average of 24 percent.
2. The average family of four visiting a Civil War battlefield spends $1,000 on their trip—and their spending looks something like this:
3. In Virginia alone, tourists at Civil War battlefields stay twice as long and spend twice as much as the average tourist.
4. On average, visits by 956 tourists support one job in a battlefield community.
5. In Philadelphia, property values increase an average of 1.6 percent for each mile closer the property is to a national historic district.

For more great information on battlefield visitation in general and the specific effects places like Antietam, Chickamauga, and Harper’s Ferry have on their communities, read the report on the Civil War Trust website.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

If you liked this story, you might also like

• Living History and Solemn Reflection at Antietam Commemoration (September 28, 2012)
• Did You Know? Only 28% of Civil War Battlefields Have National Park Protections (September 12, 2012)
• From Civil War to Civil Rights: All Peeps Created Equal (March 29, 2013)

At the turn of the last century, a great American hero set an enduring standard of excellence that forged the basis of the modern National Park System. With a “take charge” style of leadership, Colonel Charles Young commanded a regiment of U.S. Army soldiers in the construction of improved roads that made it possible for the growing number of wagons and automobiles to safely visit the newly designated national park of Sequoia and its stands of giant redwood trees, the largest in the world. As the first African-American superintendent of a national park, Young led a distinguished military career in war and peace to usher in a new era of racial equality and wilderness preservation.

By presidential proclamation on March 25, 2013, Barack Obama designated the home of Charles Young in Xenia, Ohio, as a national monument to honor his great work along with the men that served as members of the all-African-American 9th and 10th Cavalry divisions known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

With the creation of this site, the president has set in motion a long-overdue exploration into the role African Americans have played in our national legacy of environmental protection. Linking together other places of historical significance, the Charles Young monument will serve as a focal point for a detailed study of the often-forgotten contributions of some of the world’s first Park Rangers.

“The National Park Service shall coordinate with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which manages the Presidio in San Francisco, and Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite National Parks to commemorate the historical ties between Colonel Charles Young and his military assignments at those sites, and the role of the Buffalo Soldiers as pioneering stewards of our national parks,” the proclamation reads.

Though Charles Young and his men served with great distinction at many other duty stations, the Buffalo Soldiers’ work to establish and defend the earliest national parks is a unique highlight of their career. Certainly other white army units served at Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite, but under Young’s leadership, the African-American soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry worked tirelessly through this “plum assignment” to make substantial improvements to the parks for others to enjoy. In the summer of 1903 it’s estimated that his men completed more work projects than the previous years of military administration combined. Many of the roads and trails they improved are still in use today.

The exemplary service of Young and his men is worthy of great praise and admiration. Shelton Johnson, the only permanent African-American national park ranger serving at Yosemite today and a national authority on the Buffalo Soldiers said blacks who patrolled the parks during this period endured many hardships due to the racial attitudes of the time.

“I always say that what separates any Buffalo Soldier from a white soldier is that the Buffalo Soldiers were always fighting on two fronts. There was the enemy before them, and that enemy called racism that completely surround them every day of their lives,” Johnson said. “In spite of that fact, they did their duty even though they carried a far heavier burden. They worked harder than their counterparts. They had to, just to prove that they could do the work at all.”

It’s important to realize that during the time Charles Young served his county (roughly 1880 to 1920) a horrific chapter opened in American history, a period known as the “nadir.” Many of the rights blacks attained at the end of the Civil War were abolished. Racial violence, public beatings, and lynchings directed toward African Americans, began to steadily increase and then skyrocketed.

“Colonel Young didn’t simply endure that ‘bad, worse time’ he excelled during it,” wrote Legislative Representative Alan Spears in a statement from NPCA. “Young’s time in national parks was notable then, earning him accolades from admirers military and civilian alike. Today, Young’s legacy has the strong potential to serve as a reminder to those African Americans who think that parks are unwelcoming places with little to no relevance for them or their people, that we have, in fact, always been in and connected to these landscapes, this history.”

Today, when African Americans represent less than 5 percent of national park visitors, a commemorative site that celebrates their enduring legacy and heritage is long overdue. Audrey Peterman author of the new book Our True Nature: Finding A Zest for Life in the National Park System says the memory of Charles Young and the Buffalo Soldiers can help a new generation of environmental advocates identify with role models whose example they can follow.

“When I walk among the giant sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park, I am overcome with feelings of awe and amazement,” Peterman said in a recent exchange via email. “Charles Young was so far ahead of his time that he is credited with taking the first conservation action in Sequoia, fencing off the roots of the most vulnerable trees to prevent them being trampled by humans.”

Though park evangelists of the present day might become distracted by threats of spending cuts and the reallocation of resources away from wilderness preservation, lessons learned in the past can help to encourage the best work of protection for generations yet to come.

“As an advocate for the national parks who is also African American, I keep Col. Young’s example uppermost in my mind,” Peterman said “Those days when I feel that it’s just too much to keep going in the face of overwhelming ‘benign neglect’ from the powers that be, I remind myself that he persisted, and so must I.”

The Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument will stand as a clear reminder for the future. Since the beginning of the National Park System, even those already suffering the most tragic circumstances of their day stood and fought to protect the precious natural resources and wild places they loved. Today with the higher stakes of a warming planet, overpopulation, and dwindling sources of energy, how could we now do any less?

This story originally appeared on The Joy Trip Project blog and is reprinted with permission. The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac, and the New Belgium Brewing Company.

If you liked this story, you might also like

• President Obama Preserves Three Important Sites in America’s History, Honors Civil War Hero Harriet Tubman (March 25, 2013)
• A Valentine’s Day Q&A with Audrey Peterman: One Enthusiast’s “Love Letter to the Parks” (February 14, 2013)
• Standing Guard: Meet America’s Buffalo Soldiers—some of the nation’s first park rangers (from the Fall 2012 issue of National Parks magazine)

Today the country celebrates an important milestone in preserving its history. After years of advocacy and study, President Obama has finally named three new national monuments as part of the National Park System, including a new national park site on Maryland’s Eastern Shore honoring Harriet Tubman. This new national monument encompasses several sites in Dorchester County, Maryland, of great historic significance to Tubman’s early life as an enslaved person and during her career as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

American schoolchildren grow up learning about Tubman and her legendary bravery, hearing how she escaped from slavery and risked her freedom—perhaps her own life—to free dozens of others on the Underground Railroad. Now, just a couple of weeks after the 100th anniversary of her death, the Park Service will help to tell her story.

As an enslaved girl on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Tubman was hired out to work for “Miss Susan,” a mistress who was quick to use the whip. Once, after she caught Tubman stealing a lump of sugar, Miss Susan flew into a violent rage. Tubman fled to escape another beating, and hid in a pigpen for days until hunger forced her to return. She was brutally whipped for her transgressions. 

In October 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia. In December 1854, Tubman, who could neither read nor write, asked a friend to send a coded letter to Jacob Jackson, an Eastern Shore neighbor and a free and literate black man. The letter instructed Tubman’s three brothers to prepare for her pending return to guide them to Philadelphia and freedom. They successfully escaped on Christmas Day, telling no one of their plans, not even their mother who was expecting her sons for Christmas dinner. The Jacob Jackson Site will be part of the Harriet Tubman National Monument and managed by the National Park Service in partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the State of Maryland.

Later, as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Tubman returned to Maryland multiple times to liberate friends and family members. Much of the landscape found today on Maryland’s Eastern Shore has changed little since Tubman roamed the territory in the 1800s. The preservation of those fields, trails, and waterways—intact and unimpaired for benefit and enjoyment of future generations—makes this designation an even sweeter victory.

Of equal or greater significance is what this national monument designation will do to advance public understanding of women’s history in general, and the role of African American women in particular. Of the 398 units in our National Park System prior to today’s designations, just seven were tasked directly with commemorating some aspect of women’s history.

Tubman also served in the Civil War as a Union nurse, spy, and scout, on one occasion leading Federal troops along an obscure path which allowed them to more stealthily approach opposing Confederate forces. Tubman’s courageous work contributed directly to the preservation of the Union and highlighting that legacy will help the National Park Service create a much broader and more accurate picture of who really matters when it comes to understanding the conflict that defined this nation. After the war, she continued to serve her people and her country selflessly until her death in 1913. 

While the national monument is a great step forward, it does not accomplish everything advocates hope to achieve on Harriet’s behalf. The national monument would leave out the Poplar Neck plantation (in Talbot and Caroline Counties, Maryland) from which Tubman escaped in 1848. It also does not include any properties in Auburn, New York, including the A.M.E. Zion Church where Tubman worshipped, her personal residence, and a home for the aged she raised money to build and operate. For the past six years, NPCA has actively worked with partners such as the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (ASALH), the Maryland Office of Tourism, and a variety of other federal, state, local, and grassroots champions to pass legislation introduced by Senator Ben Cardin and cosponsored by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Gillibrand (D-NY), and Schumer (D-NY) to preserve these additional sites. Our work on the legislative front will continue even after the designation of the national monument.

As the National Park Service advances towards its centennial in 2016, much discussion has been had about the best ways to create a 21st century park system for a 21st century America. A Tubman site helps advance that goal by commemorating the legacy of a woman who rose from humble beginnings under the worst circumstances any of us could imagine to become one of this nation’s most admired historic icons. Tubman’s story is important because in many ways it is our history at its best. Thanks to bold action of President Barack Obama, her narrative is now a story we can share more broadly with the world, and for that, maybe help make that world a better place.

Colonel Charles Young and the Buffalo Soldiers

In addition to the long-awaited site honoring Tubman, President Obama also designated two other national park sites sharing important parts of our nation’s history, including the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. Though Harriet Tubman’s story is widely taught, Young’s fascinating legacy and the story of the Buffalo Soldiers is less familiar to many.

In 1884, Second Lieutenant Charles Young became just the third African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Young distinguished himself as a soldier in the Ninth U.S. Cavalry, one of the black troops known as the Buffalo Soldiers that served, among other roles, as some of the nation’s first park rangers. Despite the rigid segregation of the U.S. military at the time, Young rose through the ranks to become a colonel; served as a professor of military science, French, chemistry, geometry, and geology at Wilberforce University in Ohio; and went on to become the first African-American acting national park superintendent at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in 1903. The national monument preserves Young’s home in Xenia, Ohio, and helps tell not only his story, but the story of life as a black soldier in the 19th century.

First State National Monument

Last but not least, today’s announcement helps preserve an urban oasis along the Brandywine River in Delaware—the only state in the country that did not have a national park site. The First State National Monument tells much of early America’s history, from the Native American Lenape tribe that lived in the river valley to the Wyeth family of artists who still paint its beautiful landscapes. The largest battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of the Brandywine, was fought here, and the birth of industry was literally propelled by the Brandywine River’s steady flow. Even the paper used to print the Declaration of Independence was made on the Brandywine River. The new monument also commemorates the legacy and perseverance of early Dutch, Swedish, and English settlements, a vital aspect of the state’s rich history.

More than five million people live within 25 miles of the main property, making it readily accessible to the public and a conservation centerpiece for the state and the region.

Learn more about the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad, Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers, and First State National Monuments on NPCA’s website.

Somewhere in the visitor center of the Harry S Truman National Historic Site in Independence, Missouri, I worry that the park rangers pass around my photograph, my name, and a note saying: “Warning! He asks too many questions.”

Well, probably not, but I deserve it, as historic sites have a way of unleashing my unbridled curiosity. Park rangers at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, Hampton National Historic Site, Pea Ridge National Military Park, and many other sites have all cheerfully endured my barrage of questions concerning everything from the aiming accuracy of historic rifles to the estimated cost of imported French wallpaper in the 18th century. What great sports those park rangers have been in humoring me, and what a startling ability they have to answer even my most obscure questions.

One of my favorite places in the park system is the Truman site. Like Harry Truman, my upbringing happened on a Missouri farm, and my family was similarly of the old-fashioned Missouri Democrat variety. In my early 20s I took my curiosity further by reading three biographies on him in succession, Plain Speaking by Merle Miller, Harry S. Truman by his daughter Margaret Truman Daniel, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Truman by David McCullough. That did it. Truman became my favorite president and still is. There is a framed picture of him in my office at home and a replica of his famous “The Buck Stops Here!” sign on my desk at work, even though I am not the boss, so the buck decidedly does not stop here.

Because of my love of this place, the recent news about closures and cuts at the Harry S Truman National Historic Site is especially troubling.

Around the country, park officials are grappling with how to handle a federally imposed 5 percent “sequester” cut to their budgets when most of their operating costs are inflexible. Superintendents nationwide are making painful choices about whether to reduce seasonal staff, close visitor centers, leave vacant positions unfilled, or cut services such as educational and interpretive programs, among other difficult options. The Truman site is no exception.

To balance the budget, park officials must close the visitor center and the main Truman home on Sundays, Mondays, and all federal holidays. They will indefinitely close the Noland home across the street, where Harry Truman’s cousins Nellie and Ethel Noland lived and where he was visiting when his courtship of their neighbor Bess Wallace began in 1910. They must also close the house at the Truman farm, where he lived with his mother and sister prior to his 1919 marriage to Bess.

This means the federal sequester has cut the visiting hours for the main house by nearly a third, and it has put the two sites dedicated to Harry Truman’s early life completely off-limits to visitors. As an urban park that is visited by tens of thousands of school children each year and annually pumps $1.9 million into the local economy, the cuts will have a ripple effect throughout the community, not just on history buffs like me.

While the Truman site is not the biggest or best-known site in the National Park System, it is a wonderful place for learning about and understanding our not-so-distant past. On my 2008 visit, I was amazed by how perfectly preserved the main house is. When Bess Wallace Truman died in 1982 at the age of 97–she is the longest-lived first lady, fellow trivia buffs–the house and all of its furnishings and artifacts were left as a gift to the government for the benefit of the American people. Because of her bequest, the Truman house is a time capsule of the personal life of a president and first lady.

This home was built by Bess Truman’s grandfather in 1867, was later owned by her mother, and became the Truman’s main residence from their marriage in 1919 until his death in 1972, after which Bess lived there alone until her own death. During the ten years Harry Truman served in the U.S. Senate, his three months as vice president, and his eight years as president, the large Victorian home in Independence was the family’s frequent escape from political life. Walking into it today, you can hardly tell they left. Next to the door, their coats and Harry’s walking sticks are still in their places, as if they had been left there just moments before. In the library, Bess’ favorite paperback mysteries are still where she left them. These carefully preserved details provide an intimate portrait of a man who changed history through moves both controversial, such as the dropping of the atomic bomb, and inarguable, like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine.

The day of my visit was a quiet one, so I peppered the park ranger giving my tour with all sorts of questions. Had notable world leaders visited the home? The late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had. Does his last car, a 1972 Chrysler Newport, still run? It does, and Park Service staff start it on a regular basis to maintain it. I am used to seeing purposely arranged rooms and artifacts in other museums and historic sites, so I asked my guide if anything had been staged in the house prior to it being opened to the public. She responded that just two things had been altered: The week of Bess’s funeral, her daughter, Margaret Truman Daniel, had personally set the tables in the kitchen and the dining room in an effort to give a better picture of what day-to-day life was like for Harry and Bess Truman. 

Where can you simply walk back in time into such an authentic and painstakingly preserved picture of people’s lives? The Harry S Truman National Historic Site is one-of-a-kind, and the visitors like me who value our country’s history should be able to see these places, just as Harry and Bess Truman intended when they donated them at no cost to us, the American people. The answer to our nation’s economic woes does not lay in closing and restricting access to our national parks. We should instead be celebrating and encouraging more people to visit these unique and inspiring parts of our nation’s history.

If you liked this story, you might also like

• Remembering the Little-Known Battle at One of the Best-Preserved Civil War Parks (March 7, 2012)
• The Top Five Myths about the Sequester and National Parks (March 14, 2013)
• Funding Discussion Shares Creative Solutions for National Park Funding Woes (March 20, 2013)

By now, I’m sure you know just how serious the situation is for our national parks due to the sequester cuts which will go into effect later today.

It’s alarming that this very avoidable threat is about to become a reality. From Yellowstone to Cape Cod, the Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains, our national heritage and local economies are at risk.

Information in a recently leaked Park Service planning document about potential impacts to park budgets suggests that the sequester will cause drastic cuts to jobs, educational programs, visitor centers, and visitor access points, including:

• Jobs: Blue Ridge Parkway would cut 21 seasonal interpretive ranger programs, which would result in the closure of 50 percent of its visitor center contact stations at our country’s most-visited national park site. Eliminating these seven stations will put an 80-mile distance between each open facility.
• Education: Gettysburg National Military Park would eliminate 20 percent of its student education programs during the spring, which will impact 2,400 students.
• Impact to Gateway Communities: Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road would delay its reopening by two weeks. Previous closures of this road have resulted in $1 million in lost revenue daily to surrounding communities and concessions.
• Permanent Visitor Center Closure: Mount Rainier National Park would permanently close its Ohanapecosh Visitor Center, affecting 60,000 to 85,000 visitors.
• Tourism:  Independence National Historical Park would close eight of 16 interpretive sites in the spring and fall, such as the Declaration House, the New Hall Military Museum, and the Todd House, impacting more than 84,000 visitors.

Every dollar invested in the National Park Service generates about ten dollars in economic activity—yet in today’s dollars, the Park Service budget has already declined by 15 percent over the last decade. The Park Service’s own peer-reviewed economic report released this past Monday revealed that the nearly 279 million national park visitors in 2011 generated a whopping $30.1 billion in economic activity and supported 252,000 jobs nationwide. Many in the business community are deeply concerned about the wide-ranging effects these sequester cuts could have to the economy: Nearly 300 businesses have signed on to a letter calling on President Obama and Congress to keep parks open.

NPCA will continue to work with members of Congress—as it has for months—to avert the worst consequences these damaging cuts could have on our national parks and the people that love and depend on them. Your voice continues to be critical in sharing the importance of these iconic places with our elected officials. Learn more on NPCA’s website, join the conversation on Twitter at #KeepParksOpen, and please take a moment to tell President Obama and Congress to keep parks open.

Black history and the African-American narrative comprise an essential chapter in our country’s shared heritage and culture. Nearly 30 of our country’s 398 national park sites directly honor prominent African Americans and share their stories. During Black History Month, NPCA is hopeful about new opportunities—including the three listed below—for Congress to advance the National Park Service’s goal to more authentically represent our shared heritage.

1. Establishment of a long-awaited site to honor Civil Rights pioneer Harriet Tubman. American hero Harriet Tubman is among the most surprising leaders not currently honored in our national parks. Fortunately, the Senate reintroduced the Harriet Tubman National Historic Parks Act this month, which would create national park sites in Maryland and New York. As NPCA’s Legislative Representative Alan Spears said, “Harriet Tubman’s story is that of a true American icon, as she rose from a humble beginning, lived through degradation, and rose above to empower others to reach a better, brighter future.” Harriet Tubman served her country not only as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, but also as a nurse, scout, and spy. Through the expertise of National Park Service, an up-close history of the Underground Railroad could be shared, as well as Tubman’s often overlooked contributions to the war effort.
2. Recognition of the heroic contributions of the Buffalo Soldiers. Honoring our country’s first National Park Rangers, the Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks Study Act was recently reintroduced by House and Senate leaders. If passed, this legislation would authorize the Park Service to examine areas that were significant to African-American troops known as the Buffalo Soldiers in the late 1800s and early 1900. Many believe American Indians coined the term from the soldiers’ brown skin and thick curly hair, not unlike the buffalo. Others believe the strength of the buffalo inspired the name. What we know without question is that before the National Park Service, park care and administration was commissioned through the Army. Buffalo Soldiers played a historic and central role in protecting Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, from their headquarters in the Presidio of San Francisco.
3. Creation of Chicago’s first national park. We also await reintroduction of legislation in Chicago to study a potential Pullman National Historic Site in Chicago. The Pullman District was the first industrial planned community in the 1880s and recounts of the rise of the modern labor movement and the formation of the first African-American labor union. Unique stories of accomplishment make the Pullman district a perfect place for Chicago’s first national park site.

NPCA is proud to advocate on behalf of these important sites and work to preserve African-American history in our national parks. On Wednesday, February 27 from 3-4pm ET, NPCA will host its first Google+ Hangout: “The Legacy of Buffalo Soldiers and Our National Parks.” Famed Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson and Colonel Charles Young biographer Brian Shellum will participate in the discussion, along with NPCA staff members Alan Spears and Amy Marquis. Join us for this discussion on the history of Buffalo Soldiers in our national parks and efforts currently underway to further diversify our National Park Service from the inside out.

UPDATE: You can watch a recording of NPCA’s Google Hangout here. Special thanks to Shelton Johnson, Brian Shellum, Alan Spears, Amy Marquis, and everyone who participated and sent questions for this informative and interesting discussion.

Korematsu’s story is not widely known, though three state governments are helping to change that by declaring January 30 Fred Korematsu Day—the first such holiday honoring an Asian American.

The United States officially entered World War II after Japanese fighters bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941; the country had been at war for more than a year when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 giving U.S. armed forces broad powers to incarcerate anyone in the name of military defense. The government overwhelmingly used this power to imprison Japanese Americans for having “foreign enemy ancestry” (though German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans were also detained, in smaller numbers). Ultimately, the military kept 120,000 innocent people under armed guard in isolated areas of the West, forcing them to leave their homes, businesses, possessions, and normal lives behind—for years.

When the incarcerations began, Korematsu chose to defy the executive order and live as an ordinary American, changing his name and even undergoing minor plastic surgery on his eyes in an attempt to hide his ethnicity. Still, he was arrested in May 1942, convicted in a federal court, and held against his will at a “relocation center” until the end of the war.

“Fred was not interested in a pardon from the government; instead, he always felt that it was the government who should seek a pardon from him and from Japanese Americans for the wrong that was committed.” – Kathryn Korematsu

Korematsu maintained his innocence and appealed his arrest all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him in 1944, claiming the imprisonments were a “military necessity.” His arrest was a black mark on his record for decades. Finally, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed a special commission on the incarcerations that ultimately determined in 1983 that the government had imprisoned thousands of Japanese Americans based on racism and prejudice, not military necessity. In 1982, Peter Irons, a political science professor at the University of California, uncovered secret government documents while conducting research. The documents proved that the Justice Department had knowingly suppressed evidence showing that the incarcerated Americans were innocent of wrongdoing and posed no military threat to justify their imprisonment. The new evidence and the presidential commission’s findings allowed a legal team to reopen Korematsu’s case and overturn his criminal conviction in 1983, more than four decades after his arrest.

During the litigation, the government offered Korematsu a pardon in exchange for dropping his lawsuit. His wife, Kathryn Korematsu, described his reaction this way: “Fred was not interested in a pardon from the government; instead, he always felt that it was the government who should seek a pardon from him and from Japanese Americans for the wrong that was committed.”

Korematsu spent the later years of his life protesting the government detention of suspected combatants at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, filing amicus briefs on behalf of Muslims incarcerated without trials.

The National Park Service has played an important role telling the story of Japanese-American incarceration during World War II. Three of the ten “relocation camps” at Manzanar, Minidoka, and Tule Lake are now parts of the National Park System, though the camp where Korematsu spent most of his incarceration, the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah, was mostly stripped of its buildings and artifacts after the war when the government auctioned off much of the land and property there. Some items are preserved in a local museum, and the site is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Learn more about Korematsu’s legacy on the Korematsu Institute website, and read a recent story in National Parks magazine about some of the remarkable works of art created by Japanese Americans in the camps, written by the daughter of two internees.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

On Monday, January 21, the Department of the Interior will waive entrance fees at all national parks in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. For those of us fortunate enough to have the day off, the fee-free day is an excellent reason to commemorate the life of the visionary leader in one of America’s most inspirational places.

Monday is also Inauguration Day. For those who plan to be in the Washington, D.C., area, a trip to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial near the Tidal Basin on the National Mall is worth the short walk from downtown. The memorial, officially dedicated in 2011, is a majestic, larger-than-life tribute to the Civil Rights hero that allows visitors to travel through a symbolic “Mountain of Despair” to see a 30-foot replica of King himself, known as the “Stone of Hope.” (Both quotes are from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963.) The statue is surrounded by a 450-foot granite wall inscribed with memorable quotes from throughout King’s career.

If you’re not planning to be in D.C., however, it’s worth noting that this memorial is always free to the public—as is the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site that preserves his childhood home, his tomb, and the Center for Nonviolent Change founded in his name by Coretta Scott King in Atlanta, Georgia—so you can plan a cost-effective trip to either of these historic places when it suits you. For more inspiration on where to spend a meaningful day near you, see NPCA’s list of parks in the National Park System that showcase African-American history, including pivotal people and places in the Civil Rights movement.

Of course, if you’re the solitary type, you might also put a book on King in your backpack, head to any of your favorite parks, find an overlook on a quiet trail, and reflect on his tremendous legacy.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications