Introduction

1The relation of the United States with nature has always been profoundly intertwined with underlying issues of racial inequality and injustice, as illustrated by the controversial history of Westward expansion. Conquering and confronting the wilderness was synonymous with handling, if not eliminating, the presence of Native Americans, and defining who would rightfully be allowed to enjoy the fruits of the alleged civilization process. As Westward expansion drew to a close, White Americans endeavored to claim their sole legitimacy in both preserving and exploiting nature, especially as wild places came to be regarded as sanctuaries and retreats away from the unintended negative effects of civilization in the urban world. This evolution validated a shift away from the perception of the wilderness as a hostile environment meant to be tamed, to embrace the idea that wild spaces represented the essence of American identity. In addition to that, one can also underline that the civilization process at work with Westward expansion was also undeniably guided by religious motives. Manifest Destiny, elaborated in the mid-nineteenth century, offered in that sense the theoretical backdrop to this territorial conquest.

2From the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, this desire to better control and regulate natural spaces was characterized by the creation of the first National Parks (Yellowstone in 1872) and the institutionalization of the process with the foundation of the National Park Service through the Organic Act of 1916. A few decades later, in 1964, this agenda was materialized by the foundation of the National Wilderness Preservation System through the Wilderness Act (United States, Congress), which asserted that “a wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” (Nash 5). This piece of legislation exemplified the country’s intention to legally define the human-created concept of the wilderness, understood as alleged natural and empty spaces (Whitson, 2025b 8).

African Americans in the Outdoors: Marginalized and Out of Place throughout History

8To begin with, US history appears as a key feature defining the relation of some racial groups with nature, and by extension with the outdoors. James Edward Mills writes:

The racially motivated violence rampant throughout the 1960s is a thing of the past. But what remains are cultural artifacts, social cues that define the unwritten sets of expectations we have for what people of certain racial or ethnic background are supposed to do as part of “normal behavior.” For many minorities in this country, these expectations do not include embracing the outdoors, whether for sport or for work. (44)

10As a consequence, for a vast majority of African Americans, the idea that nature—and by extension the outdoors—was synonymous with exclusion and life-threatening violence has been integrated and has persisted even after slavery and segregation were outlawed. The development of the outdoors from a recreational perspective thus perpetuated an ideology that had been conceived originally by some of the most influential figures of the conservationist movement in the late nineteenth century. Kang Jae Jerry Lee explores the historical dimension of these practices as he articulates the long history of racism in relation with the outdoors: “White environmental leaders have historically barred Black Americans and other people of color from great outdoors. For instance, instrumental figures in the U.S. conservation movement and the birth of national parks, such as Madison Grant, Gifford Pinchot, and Teddy Roosevelt, were wealthy, powerful, White males who held strong eugenic beliefs” (73).

11The long-lasting effects of this phenomenon still affect African Americans’ relation with nature, as summarized by Jeannette Stawski: “Why take a chance of the unknown when there is such a long legacy of painful, divisive, and horrific experiences for non-White individuals in wild places?” (64). This understanding of natural spaces being dangerous for people of color can be analyzed through the concept of safe places, defined by Dorthy Irrera as follows: “At surface level, it is a space where someone can safely exist […] safe spaces are spaces where social and cultural differences can co-exist civilly” (2). Statistics regarding potential assault of African Americans in wilderness areas or in National Parks are hard to come by, but what remains undeniable is that Blacks are underrepresented in these spaces, especially in comparison with their White counterparts (Xiao et al.). According to Joe Weber and Selima Sultana, a 2003 study showed that only thirteen percent of African Americans had visited a National Park System unit in the two years preceding the survey, and figures had barely evolved a few years later, highlighting what is commonly known as the underrepresentation of racial minorities in natural spaces (Weber and Sultana 438). For Dorothy Irrera, this absence comes predominantly from the fact that the wilderness was constructed for and by Whites with a view of dominating a territory. In the long run the purpose of this fabrication of White natural spaces resulted in defining them as the epitome of freedom for Whites, while on the contrary, it came to be perceived by Blacks as a symbol of danger and insecurity (Irrera 4). The long tradition of slavery and lynching has also exacerbated this sentiment. Slaves were used to working in natural environments where their safety was never guaranteed, generating a feeling that being outside is necessarily synonymous with being unsafe: “The space that nature provides for Black people is unsafe because it is used as a tool to exploit, denigrate, and kill” (Irrera 3). These historical perspectives have participated in the marginalization of Blacks in the outdoors, forcing them to recreate their own safe natural spaces to avoid the deeply ingrained violence that permeated the wilderness (Lee 72). These patterns were instrumental in creating a certain representation of nature where Blacks remained marginalized, misrepresented and sometimes mistreated: “Assumptions about who belonged in outdoor spaces often shaped how parks rangers, law enforcement, and camp managers approached Black presence in the recreational landscape” (Young 188).

12This historically contentious relation with nature also had implications on the living environment of African Americans. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Civil War and partially failed Reconstruction era, the Black population became increasingly urbanized as exemplified by the Great Migration in the first half of the nineteenth century. This internal migration saw a large share of African Americans concentrate primarily in the major cities of the North-East and the Midwest, but also in the West, to a lesser extent. This spatial and demographic reality impacted the recreational opportunities and practices offered to Black people, and activities accordingly perceived as “Black.” This is what is illustrated by the ethnicity hypothesis which posits the existence of a “Black recreational subculture” linking African Americans with sports and leisure activities enjoyed exclusively in urban environments (Johnson et al.). This theory appears as a cultural complement to approaches highlighting the role of economic factors in explaining the lack of African Americans in outdoor recreational activities and sports. Indeed, the latter have always required a certain level of equipment, making outdoor recreation an expensive form of leisure. This is true for activities like hiking, camping, climbing, or mountaineering, to name just a few. In 1978, Randel Washburne advanced the marginality hypothesis, in which he advocated that socio-economic disparities were primarily responsible for making the outdoors inaccessible to Black Americans. He particularly pointed out issues like poor transportation facilities to go to natural spaces, or the inability to afford equipment, as major endemic obstacles to the Black experience with the outdoors (Washburne 178). More recently, James Edward Mills has described this difficult access to outdoor activities as the “adventure gap.” He also points out economic disparities as one of the many elements limiting African Americans’ opportunities to practice sports and activities that require expensive equipment:

Like the achievement gap that limits social mobility and access to higher education or better job prospects, the adventure gap is widened by limitations in financial resources. Even if you’re not trying to outfit yourselves as a technical climber, most forms of outdoor recreation involve some kind of gear, and that gear tends to be pricey. (Mills 47)

13In addition to these factors, one can point out the role of the outdoor industry as a contributor to the construction of the outdoors as a White space. This idea is not exclusive to the United States, as shown by Léa Sallenave in her work on the French Alps as a “media space of whiteness” (Sallenave 183). In the American context, a similar approach has been used by Derek Martin who contends that advertising strategies pertaining to the wildland have almost always been associated with White figures embodying notions of courage and adventurousness:

Wildland recreation enthusiasts are generally viewed as young, rugged, and adventurous, and I contend that they are almost exclusively perceived as being White. This socially constructed conception of participants in wildland recreation is what I refer to as a racialized outdoor leisure identity. (Martin 514)

14Furthermore, one can assert that this representation reactivates the myth of the pioneer, so deeply attached to a White imagery of the wilderness, which excludes from the narrative racial minorities. As demonstrated by Carolyn Finney, major outdoor companies, as well as outdoor media, share an important responsibility in marginalizing Black people in the wildland (5). This is salient through the notion of representation and media’s failure to expose Black outdoor athletes in advertising, for instance. Jeanette Stawski, the director for the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, an organization specialized in training outdoor recreation professionals and educators, acknowledges this fact:

The pictures in magazines, books, movies, and on social media reflect a predominantly white, able-bodied, fit, young, epic, and affluent point. Yet this is not the full story of everyone who recreates in and enjoys the outdoors, and it is a disservice to exclude marginalized and underrepresented outdoor enthusiasts. (64)

15In the leisure industry, this absence of representation was also well-documented by Anthony Kwame Harrison, who studied skiing magazines, as well as ski resorts’ advertising strategies designed to reinforce the whiteness of outdoor spaces:

As one of the most racially exclusive leisure activities in America, skiing offers a spectacular view of the (mountainous) spaces where the preservation of Whiteness has been most successful […] The resilience of the White image of skiing sustains the belief that Black people simply do not belong on its slopes or in its social spaces. (Harrison 333)

16In addition to the construction of a White space, these representations participated in the creation of an outdoor person prototype, a standard which marginalized people from minority groups of different kinds: “there is nothing natural about the ways in which outdoor magazines, advertising, and other media portray legitimate outdoorspeople in very specific ways: white, male, straight, muscular and able-bodied” (Stanley 244). Following Tim Cresswell’s approach in In Place/Out of Place, it can be argued that the outdoors was defined, through a multi-layered process, as a “social space” where White people experienced a sense of place, contrary to Black Americans, who were “out of place,” in other words, outsiders in the outdoors (3). Cresswell adds, “outsiders are often despised and suspected of being trouble-makers. They are people ‘out of place’” (26).

18Statistics from the Outdoor Participation Trends Reports confirm that African Americans remain both marginalized and underrepresented in the outdoors, as exemplified by visits to National Parks, for instance, of which Black people account for only five to six per cent of visitors (Mills 44). Similarly, Running USA Runners Global Survey indicates that African Americans accounted for only seven per cent of runners in 2022, compared to 64 per cent for White people (Running USA). These statistics are even amplified when we look at trail running, a rapidly expanding variant way of practicing running in less urban and more natural environments. Estimates show that only 6.4 per cent of trail runners are Black, while almost seventy per cent of them are White (Ronto). As a conclusion, it seems that the more outdoorsy an activity becomes, the more White-dominated it is, reinforcing ongoing patterns about the racialization of recreational activities. Whether it be because of historical factors, economic restrictions, or questions of representation, the outdoors remains foreign territory for a lot of African Americans.

19As a consequence, making the outdoors more diverse remains a major challenge for the industry, especially at a time when outdoor enthusiasm is gaining ground. The Outdoor Participation Trends Report for the year 2023 acknowledges, for instance, that Black Americans still have the lowest participation rate compared to other ethno-racial groups, even though progress is on the way, as illustrated by the five per cent increase between 2022 and 2023 (Outdoor Industry Association, 2024). These changes are all the more important at a time when the transformation of American demography has become undeniable, with projections indicating that the United States is poised to become a majority-minority nation by 2045 (Frey 4). For these reasons, the connection between the outdoor industry and racial issues appears extremely relevant, especially in the context of the Black Lives Matter mobilization of 2020. Taking into account the diversification of the outdoors also seems to be an economic necessity for companies who cannot disregard the financial interests that this new class of outdoor practitioners represents.

Crisis Communication and Social Responsibility to Address Racial Inequality

22Such corporations seemed to have fully grasped that they could no longer remain totally disconnected from the changing social context of the country. Economic leaders realized that what impacts society may equally affect them, especially in terms of business, consumption, and down the road, profits. When social issues disrupt society, some argue that the way corporations react is an indicator of their willingness to acknowledge their moral responsibility and “embrace their social responsibilities,” as put forward by Howard Bowen (Logan 11). Furthermore, Nneka Logan, in a series of articles on the relationship between society and corporations, as well as race and corporations, has exposed the concept of corporate social responsibility which emphasizes the obligation for businesses to make decisions in line with objectives and values of society (6). As Black Lives Matter’s mobilization intensified, outdoor industry brands and companies felt compelled to take a stand. The necessity for them was twofold. Firstly, it consisted in acknowledging the fact that the outdoor industry as a whole (media, organizations, policy-makers, and brands) had somehow historically mirrored society’s structural racism, and even exacerbated it by constructing a mostly White industry. This is the idea pointed out by Derek Christopher Martin through his theory of “apartheid in the Great Outdoors” (2004). Secondly, for several actors in the outdoor industry, nature sports and activities are a commodity and a source of profits. As a consequence, not addressing the issue of racial justice might become synonymous, in the long run, with marginalizing potential consumers.

23In the context of the outdoors, one of the main ways of communicating, whether for companies or recreators themselves, has increasingly consisted in using social media which are nowadays the fastest, easiest, and most efficient way of reaching a large number of people in a given field. From an academic standpoint, it thus makes sense to focus primarily on this communication tool, since this is the one that companies will rely on in priority to position themselves immediately on an issue that benefits from a wide media coverage. In the sphere of social media applications, Instagram overwhelmingly dominates communication in the outdoors. The purpose of the application, which invites users to share their photos, their stories, and their experiences, is perfectly consistent with the predominantly visual identity of outdoor activities and sports which take place in natural and wild environments. Used by more than one billion people worldwide (Graham and Eriksson Krutrök 764), Instagram is viewed by outdoor companies as a medium to sell products, but also a lifestyle, which outdoorspeople equally claim to be representing through their posts featuring them in natural and wild spaces (Whitson, 2025b 15). One may go as far as to suggest that Instagram is the nexus that brings together the economic needs of the outdoor industry and the self-representation of outdoor practitioners, who are themselves a key component of said industry. Graham and Eriksson Krutrök write about Instagram’s intention to reflect travelers’ changing practices and experiences: “Of all the social media platforms available to advertisers in the 2010s into the 2020s, Instagram is most attuned to the imperative for these brands to enact for their audiences the ‘mediatised travel performances they no longer read about in books but scroll through with their thumbs’” (Smith qtd. in Graham and Eriksson Krutrök 765). As a consequence, Instagram was unsurprisingly exploited by outdoor brands to communicate on racial justice. Not only did they see Instagram as a way of honoring their obligations, abiding thus by the theory of corporate social responsibility, but they were also able to actively communicate, through the lens of what Melissa Dodd and Dustin Supa call corporate social advocacy (Logan 12). In doing so, corporations tried to influence the perception the public has of the company, even though the issue was not directly relevant to the brand itself, which was the case, for instance, with the death of George Floyd. For these reasons, the present article explores some of the most widely shared and commented posts published by some outdoor brands on their Instagram accounts during the Black Lives Matter mobilization of the summer of 2020.

24One example can be the following statement by the company Clif Bar, an energy food and drinks brand for outdoor lovers, which exemplifies this type of communication on the issue of racial injustice that became commonplace in 2020:

• 10 Color of Change is a civil rights advocacy non-profit organization formed in 2005 in the aftermath (...)
• 11 Clif Bar. “We believe in change.” Instagram, June 1, 2020. instagram.com/clifbar/p/CA5pGLYHj_e/. Ac (...)

We believe in change. We believe the racial injustice Black Americans face every day can and must change. And we believe the inequities dividing us all can change. But change doesn't happen by itself. Clif Bar & Company stands with the people and organizations who are fighting to ensure that Black Americans are treated with dignity, respect, and equality. Today, we are donating $100,000 to Color of Change10 and our longtime partner the African People’s Education and Defense Fund (links for both below). Because change can't stand still. #blacklivesmatter. (Clif Bar)11

25Through this statement, Clif Bar commits itself to supporting Black Lives Matter by promising to donate money to Black civil rights organizations. Nevertheless, as pointed out by scholars like Pete Kalina, this strategy aims at highlighting issues related to racial injustice and racial divisions, without specifically addressing the question of the endemic racism that might exist in the industry itself, in the present case, the outdoor industry. Kalina defines this as performative activism or allyship which “refers to someone from a nonmarginalized group professing support and solidarity with a marginalized group, but in a way that is not helpful” (qtd. in Wellman 2). Tarin, Santos Upton, and Hinojosa Hernandez define this detachment from the issue as “non-specification of grievance,” a strategy in which a corporation underlines the systemic racism of society without acknowledging its own responsibility in perpetuating it (1). In their study, published after the murder of George Floyd, they affirm that: “statements like this demonstrate a process of externalization in which the social ills of police brutality and systemic racism are rendered as problems “out there” that allow the organization to deny culpability” (4). Adopting a similar approach, the brand Patagonia, which has 5.3 million followers on Instagram and which is a heavyweight in the field of outdoor apparel, was equally in the limelight in the wake of these reactions that characterized the outdoor industry in the spring of 2020. In late May 2020, the company released the following statement:

We join with those who call out the name of George Floyd in sorrow and anger against the systemic racism that pervades our land. We stand in solidarity with African Americans and people of color, including those among our colleagues and their families. And we call on business to work with government and civil society to address racism. We know that we have work to do.

• 12 According to some studies, people belonging to urban and lower-income categories were more unlikely (...)

Environmentalism and social justice are inextricably linked and we all must address the intersection of people and planet and the core inequalities in our society. Patagonia remains deeply committed to saving our planet and a world where everyone has access to clean air, water, land, and a healthy community. Since 2016, we have dedicated over $4M to increasing support and attention to grassroots groups in frontline communities who are often hardest hit not only by racial injustice, but also the climate crisis, environmental pollution, and now the COVID-19 pandemic.12 Today, we are making a $100,000 donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Tomorrow, and in the weeks to follow, we will intensify our efforts to ensure that voting, the most basic civil right we have, is safe for everyone.

• 13 Patagonia. “Patagonia Statement on Social Injustice.” Instagram, May 31, 2020. patagoniaworks.com/p (...)

Through our Action Works platform, we also encourage our community to learn more about the environmental justice and voter-turnout groups Patagonia supports. And we will continue engaging with our partners and grantees in communities of color to learn how we can best support them. We are committing to not only being more aware of racism and social injustice all around us but actively doing something about it. Nonviolent activism pushes progress. We have work to do. (Patagonia 2020a)13

26In this statement, the brand connected its opposition to racial injustice to one of its long-term political battles, that of environmentalism. Indeed, Patagonia is well-known in the outdoor industry for being a pioneer on issues related to the protection of the environment, a position particularly exposed through its marketing strategy, its communication, and its advertising about making sustainable clothes, and inviting customers not to purchase more than they need. Like Clif Bar, Patagonia’s first reaction was meant to speak out against racism in general, then to pledge donations, a strategy which was also questioned by Tarin, Upton, and Hernandez as they argue that this is a way to avoid more long-term and concrete commitments: “by donating money, the organizations are able to present clear, tangible evidence of their support for racial justice—but do not necessarily need to commit to longer-term efforts to combat racialized exclusions within the organization or the broader realm of outdoor recreation” (7). The brand strives to emphasize its relation with the African American community by making a reference to the NAACP, the historical civil rights organization created in 1909. In doing so, Patagonia aims to assert a form of legitimacy by establishing a relation with one of the most recognized civil rights organizations in the country. However, Patagonia’s efforts at addressing racism were diluted in a lengthy statement that also included electorally-related messages in the context of the 2020 presidential campaign. As a result, if the statement started by mentioning George Floyd, it seems that the issue of police brutality ended up being a pretext to develop other political positions.

27In any case, what is striking with Clif Bar’s and Patagonia’s initial responses is the failure of the two companies to speak directly about the inability, the failures, and even the unwillingness, of the outdoor industry to be more inclusive, and as a consequence to address its own shortcomings. This is even more problematic since the outdoor industry has epitomized the systemic racism that permeates American society, which should have forced these corporations to speak out more forcefully against racial injustice and to immediately feel accountable. Contrary to what the recent position of these brands suggests, the outdoor industry has played a role in the marginalization of Black Americans in recreational activities. The fact that some brands recognized their past impact speaks volume to the responsibility of the industry. Some sports these outdoor brands have been associated with were historically branded as White and this image persisted throughout time. Skiing is a relevant example, and ski resorts as well as equipment, were traditionally designed to appeal to a White public that could identify with mythical representations that excluded racial minorities (Coleman, 1996 585). The aforementioned reactions thus intended to change these views, through communication, and sometimes through their policies. In 2020, the American brand The North Face expressed the necessity of hiring more people of color, with a view of having racial minorities accounting for twenty-five per cent of its employees by 2030 (Webb, 2021). The company management acknowledged that a long history of underrepresentation of minorities had characterized the practices of the group. The change of policy seemed to be necessary to expand their consumer base, as the communication director, Amanda Calder-McLaren suggested: “We’re doing more than most but it’s still not enough” (qtd. in Webb).

28Nevertheless, not all brands chose what may appear as a conciliatory and moderate discourse. Some companies were more straightforward and did not hesitate to acknowledge their own flaws to the larger issue of racism. Through corporate responsibility to race, the equation consists in shedding light on society’s racial wrongs, as well as acknowledging the industry’s responsibility through its own experience and practices (Logan 12). The shoe-making company Merrell adopted such a stance in May 2020 by publishing the following statement:

• 14 Merrell. “We stand with everyone advocating for justice.” Instagram, May 30, 2020. instagram.com/me (...)

We believe the outdoors is for everyone. No matter who you are, where you came from, who you love or how you move, we should all be able to safely enjoy the power of being outside, or wherever life takes us. We recognize that not everyone has the privilege to get outside safely and without fear. There is a problem and we will not stay silent. We stand with everyone advocating for justice today and every day. There are simple ways to take action such as furthering your knowledge around systemic issues, taking less than one minute to text “FLOYD” to 55156, or signing this petition to bring #justiceforgeorge: https://wwww.change.org/​p/​mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd.”14

29Here, conversely to previous examples, the brand spoke right from the first sentence about the outdoors, an idea symbolized by the black letters in bold, above the drawing of a mountain, with “Merrell” being inserted in between the two elements. Merrell uses the Black Lives Matter mobilization to conduct its own introspection, and not simply to alert about racism in general. The terms “outdoors” and “outside” are repeated several times and used interchangeably here to refer to natural spaces, and even though racism is integrated into a broader denunciation of several forms of discrimination (against sexual and gender minorities, as well as disabled people), the issue of racial justice in the outdoors appears as central, not marginal. Merrell does not shy away from the contribution of the outdoor industry to exacerbating racism and underlines that the outdoors also has to fix the problem. One can argue that by making a reference to the notions of “privilege” and “fear” related to the outdoors, Merrell echoes some of the endemic factors explaining the historical absence of African Americans in such activities. The company thus sheds light on the persistence of features that still prevent Black people, and along the way other minorities, from accessing the outdoors freely and on an equal footing with White people, namely economic inequality and multifaceted forms of discrimination. The post helps bring together the past and the present in order to generate a change of position and approach that must be embraced by the brand, and potentially other outdoors companies with it. Furthermore, the statement may be understood as being more than rhetorical, since the company also proposes concrete ways of action to address racial discrimination in the context of George Floyd’s murder. Toward the end of the post, Merrell specifically invites its followers to sign a petition in support of George Floyd, addressed to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. In doing so, the post embraces a more openly political stance which goes beyond the mere denunciation of racism in the outdoors. The reference to “systemic issues” also underscores the profoundly ingrained problems which the outdoor industry seems to have perpetuated.

30In a similar fashion, the brand Arc’teryx displayed in June 2020 a relatively comparable message through the following statement:

We have stayed silent for too long.

There is systemic racism haunting the communities we love. We felt as though an Instagram post without action couldn’t meaningfully address this systemic problem – but we realize that an issue this entrenched must be named, and we must speak up.

This has been a humbling process for us. As a business and as an industry we haven’t always gotten it right, and have a long way to go. We are committed to taking action to change, no matter how long it takes.

Racism, injustice and violence need to stop. We stand in solidarity with Black lives in communities around the world.

We marvel at the strength of joining together to confront injustice, and will use our voice to seek justice where we live, work, and play. We promote the positive power of humans to be problems solvers. We will educate whenever and wherever we can. We commit to ensuring that every single human feels at home in everything we do.

• 15 Arc’Teryx. “We Have Stayed Silent for Too Long.” Instagram, June 1, 2020. The post has been deleted (...)

The outdoors is for everyone. This world is for everyone. We cannot stop until every person is welcomed equally.15

31The brand’s communication does not simply evoke racism as a quintessential feature of American society, it denounces it as one that characterizes the outdoor industry itself, suggesting even that the industry has been complicit in perpetuating it. Mentioning a form of “systemic racism” consists in using the same discourse as activists who denounce the systemic racism of US society. The brand acknowledges the ingrained racism that has always existed in the industry itself. It also recognizes the absence of mobilization from mainstream brands and corporations until the events related to Black Lives Matter in 2020. The demonstrations across the country during the spring of that year are presented indirectly as a wake-up call which triggered the need to reckon with the situation and tackle the issue. Mentioning the fact that changing the industry might take a long time speaks volumes about the long way ahead for the brand, and more broadly for the outdoors community as a whole. This partially explains why the course of action of the company remains vague, even though Arc’teryx commits to acting for change. It is a way for the brand to embrace a form of leadership at a time when an absence of mobilization may have been perceived as a strategic mistake, both from an ethical and an economic viewpoint. The willingness to “educate” signals the need to orient their approach toward future generations, which highlights that Arc’Teryx realizes that the outdoor community is changing alongside society. The prospects for major demographic transformations that will impact the United States in the next decades must be taken into consideration by all sectors of U.S. economy, and the outdoor industry is no exception. The post is thus a combination of the new awareness of the company and its desire to seize upon the moment, as well as the trigger for a potential redefinition of the brand’s identity and targeted consumers. One can argue that this approach abides by the code of what Joseph Whitson defines as “diversity activism,” which “caters to a more diverse recreation community (and larger market) than the largely white, male, middle-and-upper-class demographic previously envisioned” (2025b 187).

32The discussion on the topic of racism in the outdoor industry continued a few months after the immediate response of these brands in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Patagonia, for instance, chose to elaborate on its original message by making another public statement in September 2020, in which the brand publicly acknowledged not only the issue of racism in the outdoors, but also its responsibility to transform the industry. Patagonia again resorted to an Instagram post—which was then published on the brand’s website, entitled “Our acknowledgment”—to communicate on the issue of racial injustice. The shift from an Instagram post to a public statement on Patagonia’s website demonstrated an evolution in the company’s communication strategy. It seemed to have sealed a long-term commitment of the brand to addressing racial injustice, and was no longer just a communication crisis strategy on the moment. Moving from the instantaneity of Instagram to the more perennial public commitment on their website may be interpreted as proof of their willingness to engage in the struggle for racial justice, a more quintessential feature of their agenda.

Patagonia has struggled to find the right words to respond to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Dijon Kizzee, and far too many others. We’ve also struggled to express our support for the racial justice movement sweeping the country. The few words we have conveyed fell short and failed to comprehend the pain of our colleagues of color and partners in the outdoor community. The Black Lives Matter movement has forced a reckoning of the deep racial injustice around us and laid bare our complicity. We are a white-led outdoor company reliant on recreation on stolen Native lands that are not yet safe for all. Recent months have revealed how much more we need to do to live up to our values as an activist company. We missed too much. Our hearts hurt, but our pain is nowhere near what our colleagues who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color have suffered. We are sorry for the harm we’ve caused.

To truly step up to this work, we must confront Patagonia’s lack of progress and take full ownership of the legacy of our failures. We must listen to and support our Black, Indigenous and colleagues of color first and commit to becoming a more inclusive and equitable company. And we will amplify the true leaders on justice and equity in the environmental movement and outdoor industry.

This work is urgent and lifelong. We will never be “done.” We’re recommitting our time and resources to this essential part of our mission. We welcome having our eyes opened to what we ignored. We’re building a foundation for our work by listening more deeply to our colleagues of color to learn from their experiences and insights. We’ve begun company-wide learning sessions to create a shared understanding of what it means to be an antiracist company. And we’re updating policies to make equity more explicit.

• 16 Patagonia. “Our Acknowledgment” Instagram, Sept. 4, 2020. patagonia.com/stories/our-acknowledgment/ (...)

Talk is cheap. In the months ahead, we’ll share our progress so that we can be held accountable. We’re in business to save our home planet, but we can’t possibly do this alone. We must focus on those most impacted by the environmental crisis and follow their lead. We are here for the work of forging a more just world.16

33Patagonia went further than it did in its initial reaction. The brand recognized the inefficiency of its first response, as well as its externalization of racism as an issue “out there” which originally may have seemed foreign to the company. Patagonia openly claimed that it had participated in perpetuating racism, especially through outdoor recreational activities’ relation with space, but also through practices that may have marginalized and affected people of color who work in the outdoor industry, presented here as a community, a term often used to allude to the collective nature of the outdoors.

34The brand accepts that fully addressing racism is an ongoing process that requires first acknowledging its past flaws and failures, and the need to engage in an introspection as symbolized by a photograph depicting Cerro Chaltén, one of the Patagonia region’s most emblematic rock formations, through an outside rear-view mirror which allows the public to look both at the mountains and themselves. It suggests the willingness of the brand to reflect on its own image to better understand its past mistakes. Secondly, addressing racial inequality is interrelated with education being the necessary step toward a deep transformation, as highlighted by the sentence that precedes the statement: “We’re learning how to become an antiracist company.” The company’s public position on racial justice thus evolved significantly, underlining a more official desire to tackle the matter of endemic racism at a macro-level, that of society, and a micro-level, that of the outdoor industry and the brand itself. The focus on different racial minorities signals a willingness to embrace a more aggressive policy of diversity, equity, and inclusion, than had traditionally been the case for Patagonia. Bringing together the situation of Native Americans and African Americans tends to widen the issue of discrimination and inequality, not exclusively through the lens of racism, but also by alluding to other ill-effects of the development of the outdoor industry, like land occupation, for instance. It brings to the fore how central the issue of space for an industry that relies on using, exploiting, and recreating on natural lands, which are often synonymous with persecution and violence for marginalized communities, sometimes for different reasons.

35These few examples may serve as a basis for a more in-depth analysis of the outdoor industry’s reaction in the context of the Black Lives Matter mobilization of the summer of 2020. More posts or other publications might be needed, but some tendencies are emerging. Firstly, the massive recourse to Instagram demonstrates once again the preeminence of this social media platform in the communication of these companies, at least as a first immediate response capable of providing an instantaneous positioning on ongoing issues. The visual dimension of outdoor activities, as well as the lifestyle that often accompanies practitioners, make Instagram the perfect fit for all these corporations to speak to potential consumers, as well as actual, consumers of their products. The social media application is the most efficient way of reaching out to a wider audience. Moreover, this new communication, despite valid suspicions of performative allyship and the obvious “strategic” nature of the response (Graham and Eriksson-Krütrok 767), may have marked a turning point in the industry’s approach to racial justice. If Instagram was not the only tool chosen by these companies (some of them also used their websites as seen with Patagonia), the social media application was probably a booster in launching more efficient communication to address what appeared as a profound internal crisis for the outdoor industry. Indeed, one can argue that Black Lives Matter, in 2020, was the catalyst for a long-needed introspection of these corporations.

36Although further studies will be needed to measure the long-term commitment of these brands beyond the symbolic messaging and awareness, it seems that addressing issues pertaining to the marginalization, the negation, and the sentiment of being out of place experienced by people of color in the outdoors has become part of a broader reflection on behalf of an industry which cannot deny any longer issues of discrimination that have been impacting the outdoors. While the new strategy of these corporations may seem to have been accelerated by the Black Lives Matter mobilization, some Black-owned organizations and companies within the outdoor industry had already existed prior to 2020. As a consequence, the movement that took place in 2020 represented an opportunity to capitalize on and to accentuate the quest for more inclusion and equality by giving it a more widespread visibility.

Reclaiming a Sense of Place: The Representation of Blacks in the Outdoor Industry

37If the awakening of outdoor brands in 2020 may have aroused skepticism because it was perceived as a way of restoring their credibility, and indirectly as a tactic to generate more profit, the outdoor industry has been undergoing major changes since then. The general understanding that the outdoors is predominantly White, in terms of participation or as far as the people's perception is concerned, does remain valid. Yet, one cannot ignore the growing mobilization of African American outdoor practitioners, whether it be entrepreneurs, business leaders, activists, heads of organizations, scholars, or individual amateur athletes who, through their political activism or their business-oriented approach, seek to gradually transform the outdoors. Their approach is characterized by the willingness to make the outdoors more accessible to Black people, be it in terms of participation or in terms of representation within the industry itself. Undeniably, Black Lives Matter has generated a new impulse and sparked conversations on race that impacted the outdoor industry.

39Making African Americans more visible in the outdoors is also the challenge of media outlets that have dominated the outdoor industry for years. The magazine Outside, founded in 1978, and dedicated to covering the outdoors, seems to have grasped the necessity to make the outdoors more representative of its diversifying community, especially its African American participants. If the magazine had been stigmatized by scholars in the past for perpetuating a White-dominated representation of the outdoors, over the last ten years, the visibility of people of color in different issues has increased, both in advertisements and in contents (Finney 78). In this context, the publication in May 2018 of an interview with a Black outdoor activist, Latria Graham, entitled “We’re Here, You just Don’t See us,” in which Graham reflects on the long history of Black Americans’ discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization in wild spaces, was characteristic of a new trend. She particularly endeavors to address the general public’s misconceptions about Black people not loving the “Great Outdoors,” forcing a redefinition of people’s understanding of outdoor recreation. Keen on debunking the view that Black people do not belong in the outdoors, she explains the different reasons that have contributed to the “nature gap” that makes people of color less likely to engage in outdoor activities (Graham). Her example shows that efforts to acknowledge the actual diversity of outdoor participants even preceded the major events of 2020, and can be connected to the earlier phase of Black Lives Matter, which had started in 2013.

40Outside magazine’s efforts were also significant through publications on two major occasions celebrating the African American community: Black History Month and Juneteenth. In 2023 and 2024, during Black History Month, Outside published or re-published a series of stories dedicated to underlining the presence of African Americans in the outdoors. These articles highlighted respectively the accomplishments of Black athletes in outdoor sports and the activism of Black women resisting both racial and gender norms, and publicized the work of a Black historian, Tiya Miles, author of the book Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation (Liu). The February 2024 issue sought to underline that the presence of Black figures in the outdoors is not a new phenomenon, but that their lack of visibility is the result of a combination of factors that have coalesced to produce a homogenously White picture of activities related to natural spaces. However, based on these stories, the reality seems very different. One article relates, for instance, the story of the Jim Dandy Ski Club, an organization created in the late 1950s in Detroit, and which aimed at demonstrating that a skier did not have to be a “blond-haired, blue-eyed Norse god” (Donahue). In 2021, another Outside Online article explored the commitment of Mardi Fuller, a Black activist and writer, who has used her personal experience as an amateur swimmer to highlight endemic inequalities connected with young African Americans’ lack of swimming ability (Fuller). Her work has contributed to demonstrating that these low swimming skills were traces of the legacy of segregation, which had made it extremely difficult for African Americans to go to swimming pools under Jim Crow laws. It is also the result of the history of slavery, a period during which slave owners prevented enslaved people from learning how to swim for fear they might use this skill as a potential way to escape.

41Shedding light on these personal stories reveals a change of approach from the most well-known outdoor magazine in the United States. It underlines the importance of representation as a decisive tool capable of changing Americans’ sense of understanding regarding who belongs in the outdoors. This gradual evolution represents a radical shift from a mainstream media which traditionally overlooked the presence of African Americans in the outdoors, as documented by Carolyn Finney in her book Black Faces, White Spaces. She particularly stresses the fact that from its foundation in 1978 to the 2010s, Outside Magazine predominantly represented Black athletes, amateur or professional, in urban settings, which partook in the persistence of stereotypes about African Americans’ recreational activities (Finney 78). As a consequence, one can affirm that only relatively recently did Outside Magazine decide to reorient its contents to more accurately depict the heterogeneous and racially diverse reality of outdoor activities. This new positioning suggests a process meant to address the issue of Black people’s invisibilization in specialized media.

42Moreover, Outside Magazine took the initiative of putting in the limelight ongoing changes in the outdoor industry through the perspective of outdoor entrepreneurs and economic leaders. In February 2023, the Outside Business Journal, a subdivision of Outside Magazine, dedicated a special issue to 24 Black-owned companies involved in the outdoor industry. This emphasis on African American business leaders contributes to making minorities legitimate not only in the outdoors, but also in the business and economic activities related to it. To that end, this type of publication serves the purpose of offering a more comprehensive and complete picture of the outdoors by exploring not only the participation of African Americans, but also their commitment to embracing leadership positions in the outdoor industry as a whole. These different examples are representative of Black Americans’ desire to have more influence both on the representation of the outdoors and on the role they can play in changing the industry from the inside. This is illustrated, for instance, by Chris Geden, director of Community Engagement, at the River City Foundation, a Missouri-based nonprofit foundation dedicated to expanding outdoor recreation opportunities in the Midwest: “[Black leadership in the outdoors matters because] I really think representation matters, and it’s important for me to be an active participant in outdoor recreation if I’m going to be an advocate in this space” (Black History Month). A similar idea is put forward by geographers who point out the need to consider Black leadership as a way forward to changing the whole environment of the outdoors: “increasing the number of African American environmental leaders is essential not only for creating a counter-image to existing White dominance, but also for fostering equitable resource allocation and decision-making in destination management” (Lee 75).

43This brings to the fore the necessity to explore the importance of Black leadership and how African Americans have been willing to change the course of the outdoor industry in the last decade. Reclaiming space in the outdoors is thus correlated to the ability of Black business and activist leaders to pick up the baton and engage, by both challenging the leading companies and working with them, to make the outdoors more inclusive. The upsurge in BLM protests in the summer of 2020 represented an opportunity for African Americans involved in the outdoor community to shed light on the inequalities existing in their own field. They capitalized on the movement to draw attention on the outdoors, an activity in which issues of racial discrimination and marginalization may have been relatively unknown to the public. The events of 2020 amplified the emerging awareness that the outdoors industry had also participated, in its own way, in pursuing practices reminiscent of the same attitudes and prejudices which Black people have always faced in a wide variety of sectors. BLM protests and the whole dynamic that came with them in 2020 were thus the cradle in which the Black outdoor community tried to shift the power dynamic of the industry. Through leadership and activism, various actors of the African American outdoor community abided by the rules of intentional transgression, defined by Tim Cresswell as “a form of resistance that creates a response from the establishment” (23). This philosophy has been guiding one of the most influential and prominent activists in the outdoor industry, Black runner and writer Alison Mariella Désir, for years now. In 2013—the year Black Lives Matter started as a movement on Twitter (now X)—she founded Harlem Run in order to create a community of Black runners who would feel comfortable with the idea of running in New York, a city where racial violence is a threat to people of color:

I thought: I have created a space where Black people feel comfortable, a place people want to come to, a place where people are forming connections and friendships. A Black space, a place for us. These runners would never have to wonder if running was for them because we’d created a space that was. (Désir, 2022 91)

44Her commitment to the cause of racial inclusivity in running continued throughout the years, particularly in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Her activism culminated in 2020, amidst demonstrations against racial injustice that were taking place in the US, when she took her mobilization a step further by becoming an outspoken agent of change in the outdoors, particularly confronting the whiteness of the outdoor industry: “I understood that the industry —the brands, the media—decides who is elevated and visible, who receives funding, who is presented as a runner, and how they are presented” (Désir, 2022 117). No longer satisfied with the idea of attracting more Black people to running, she embarked on a journey to transform the outdoor industry, to force brands, companies, athletes, and participants to acknowledge White supremacy in outdoor recreation. In 2020, after expressing her rage over Ahmaud Arbery’s death on social media, she was invited to write an op-ed for Outside Magazine. The article, entitled “Ahmaud Arbery and Whiteness in the Running World,” was a call for the White community in the running industry to face the reality of racism and start acting for change: “It is time for white people in the running community to cultivate a white identity that is separate from white supremacy—that means committing to antiracism and social justice” (Désir 2020).

45Alison Mariella Désir did not simply denounce racial inequalities, she also became a major actor of the diversification process of the outdoor industry by founding in October 2020 the Running Industry Diversity Coalition, a non-profit organization which has been, since then, a leading force in trying to unite the industry “to improve the inclusion, visibility, and access for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color” (Smalls). Désir’s project consists in gathering CEOs, organizers, activists, and athletes to share their experience of race in relation with the outdoors. The organization has now become central in the outdoor industry, sealing partnerships with major brands like Brooks, Patagonia, or Saucony. Not only does the Running Industry Diversity Coalition alert the public to racial discrimination in the outdoors, but it also organizes fundraising events, sporting events, and educational workshops meant to raise awareness about racial injustice. The organization ambitions to educate outdoor participants about activism by giving them the tools to become actors for social change through their practice of recreational activities which are, by essence, politicized actions. Their project validates the idea that sports and activism can be intertwined to convey messages that concern the Black community in particular, but also the outdoor industry as a whole. The organization endeavors to pressure the outdoor industry to create job opportunities for people of color. In the long run, the goal remains to make the industry evolve, to eradicate practices entrenched in a history of White racism, and to effectively make the outdoors accessible to all. As part of this program, in 2022, the Running Industry Diversity Coalition organized a panel discussion with Patagonia on how to break down barriers in trail running industry (Running Industry Diversity Coalition), pushing the brand to remain active in its policy toward inclusivity and to pursue the transformation it initiated in the wake of the Black Lives Matter mobilization in 2020.

46The African American figures above-mentioned and their projects illustrate the vitality of the Black outdoor community in terms of activism. They represent just a few examples of the different ways in which African Americans, and more broadly speaking racial minorities, mobilize to diversify the outdoors. It sheds light on the ability of Black Lives Matter to generate new forms of leadership beyond the scope of more widely publicized and more documented examples of racial inequalities, such as police brutality, which was at the core of the 2020 protests. The rising awareness in the outdoor industry and community that became more visible over the last few years resonates as a sign indicating the spread of the mobilization in a field that was prior to this period relatively marginal when dealing with issues of racial injustice.

47Five years after the demonstrations which started in the context of the death of George Floyd, one can observe a proliferation of actions and initiatives carried out by Black activists who are key actors of the outdoor industry. The study of constraints related to leisure activities in the outdoors is thus not a marginal question but one that digs into the broader history of racism in the United States. As the country’s population keeps changing, so does the outdoor industry. All reports by the Outdoor Foundation, for example, underline the growing participation of people of color in outdoor activities, even though inequalities remain blatant. As a consequence, even though more research will be needed in the future to measure the actual evolution of the American outdoor industry, it can be asserted that as outdoor recreation keeps growing, the necessity for its participants’ and business leaders’ identities to reflect more accurately the demographics of U.S. society is all the more important.

Conclusion

48The mobilization for racial justice and equality which spectacularly developed in the wake of Black Lives Matter in 2020 turned out to be a starting point to address the question of racism and the ways it has shaped different layers of American society. To a certain extent, the world of the outdoors, made of activities related to nature and a lifestyle close to natural spaces, but also of an industry which manufactures and sells products to practitioners and consumers who share the same passion for the wilderness and leisure, was not indifferent to the question of endemic racism. With hindsight, as seen in the present paper, this might be seen as a normal response since the outdoors, both as a physical and a social space, had always been synonymous with racial discrimination and inequality throughout American history. Thus, the participation of major outdoor brands in the context of BLM protests seems to have been the result of an emerging awareness destined to no longer ignore the issue of racism in the outdoors. Acknowledging the problem, via a communication strategy that relied primarily on the use of Instagram, and on public statements on the brands’ websites, may have been only the first step for major outdoor corporations toward more in-depth change. The latter may contribute to increasing participation of non-White people in the outdoors, as well as integrating racial minorities more efficiently in the industry, so as to transform and diversify the future of the American outdoors. Despite its flaws and limits, the response of some of these brands, based on a carefully tailored communication, may have reenergized an existing field of actions and efforts by African Americans recreating and working in the outdoors. Indeed, it must be clearly asserted that African American outdoor practitioners and professionals had already been active in striving to change the image of an industry which had historically been misinterpreted as exclusively White. The construction of the outdoors as a White space should not make the public ignore that the reality is more complex and that African Americans have been fighting for a long time to be recognized as legitimate actors in the field.

49Nowadays, the proliferation of Black-led organizations and Black-owned companies, like Diversify Outdoors, Outdoor Afro, Black Folks Camp Too or Black Girls Hike, to name a few, is proof of both the demographic changes traversing the outdoors and the ongoing willingness to pursue the mobilization for a more inclusive outdoor community and industry. These efforts signal the willingness to remove the barriers still affecting African Americans willing to enjoy their fair share of outdoor recreation, and the importance of “foregrounding the narratives of African Americans who have shown leadership, creativity, and commitment to engaging environmental concerns within and in relation to their communities” (Finney 6). In this context, the actions of African Americans involved in the outdoors intersect with the broader mobilization exposed by Black Lives Matter activism and represent just another layer of the fight for racial justice in the United States. If it is too early to affirm that 2020 marked a perennial transformation of the outdoors with regard to the racial question, and if the current political situation in the United States does not bode well for diversity and inclusion, the Black Lives Matter mobilization may have served the purpose of reenergizing conversations about racial justice in the outdoors. It can be perceived as a stepping stone in a continued effort to address issues of representation and access that have been affecting African Americans endeavoring to claim a sense of place in the outdoors. Only through these efforts and consistent mobilization will African Americans be able to debunk the narrative that “Blacks don’t go outside” and foster long-lasting change in the outdoors, as suggested by Narshara Tucker and Nicole Boyd, the co-founders of Black Girls Hike RVA: “We want black people to be outdoors and viewed as a constant and not an exception” (Murphy).