Migrations

There is such a parallel between the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South and the great migration or the migration of birds. And so I deliberately started doing storytelling around just how those comparisons are very similar. 

Birds migrate to find shelter and food and to find a mate or to have their next offspring. And that’s how blacks left the South, looking for a better place, looking for employment, looking for food, looking for refuge, looking for building our lives.

I’ve been using that as a narrative for probably about 15 years now. And it’s been one that is easily relatable for folks who would not believe that they would find bird watching or even looking at birds as something that would be exciting and fun. I’d say probably the biggest number of us in the group that I affectionately call the Afro Birders, we’ve reached up to 30 individuals. 

I was in a really bad car accident in July, 2016. I broke my ankle, my tibia and my fibula. I was in a wheelchair for almost six months. I lost some valuable time in terms of not being able to enjoy the outdoors, but I’m alive and well, and I have a greater appreciation for those things that have always been important to me. And that is looking at nature.

Mmhmm. Yeah. I couldn’t wait to get outside. Oh my God. I was in the house for a while. So, that is a clear way to share with people how they can relate to their own history and culture, especially those who migrated from the South or had family members that related to the South and how they can see the parallels of that with the migration of birds.