When Kenyetta McGowens went on a camping trip in 2021 with Black Women Who, an organization that makes outdoor spaces and green spaces accessible to Black women and builds community, she did not expect it to change her life.
“I’ve been hooked ever since,” McGowens told the Defender. “Outdoor spaces and outdoor organizations tend to be very white. It can be uncomfortable if you’re already doing something outside of your norm, like camping, and you’re sleeping outside for the first time. And then, if you’re the only Black person there, that can be very uncomfortable.”
She is now the moderator of the Houston chapter of the organization, urging more Black women to follow her. McGowens said often, the community can feel “hyper aware” of how they are being perceived or fear for their safety.
Instead, this group tries to create a space by and for other Black women, “caring for each other,” and imparting the skills needed to thrive in the outdoors on their own.
McGowens grew up playing outside, earning her Girl Scout badges. But her relationship with the outdoors changed as she grew older. It took a global pandemic and the realization that being outdoors was safer than anything else she could do to bring her back to nature.
“I realized how much it just helped my mental health,” she said. “There’s something inside of us that yearns to be connected with nature. There’s something about us that likes to have the sun, to listen to the leaves as the wind blows through, to sit in a kayak on a lake on a nice day.”
She says while more Black folk are now more comfortable venturing into the outdoors, the hesitance to explore the wilderness stems from systemic exclusion.
According to data from the National Park Service in 2018, less than 1% of national park visitors were Black. Asian and Latino visitors combined accounted for less than 1%, while white visitors accounted for 90%.
An exclusion rooted in history
The discourse around segregation in national parks arose in the 1930s and 40s. Federal officials were divided on whether parks should be segregated. Parks in Southern states said segregation was necessary to be in compliance with laws and customs in those states.
National parks like Shenandoah did not integrate until the 1950s, as was the case with many other instances. Susan Shumaker’s essay “Untold Stories from America’s National Parks” reveals that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had plans to segregate the park while developing it in the late 1930s and early 1940s, designating certain areas in Cades Cove as “colored facilities.”
In Texas, which offers a wide range of natural landscapes from desert canyons and beaches to plains and lakes, bury a history that stems from Jim Crow laws. The state barred Black people from its parks until the 1960s.
Changing the trajectory
For young Houstonians, organizations like the Woods Project are working to make wilderness access a given rather than a privilege. The program takes Houston high school students, many of whom have never left the city, on wilderness expeditions designed to push them far outside their comfort zones.
Zora Gabriel, a sophomore who traveled to Olympic National Park in Washington as a rising freshman, described coming home transformed.
“I did not come back from that trip as the same person as I was there,” Gabriel said, adding that the organization fostered camaraderie among her peers. “We just bonded so closely with each other. Through these interactions, you learn how to be a better leader and a better person. I just feel more ready to take on different social dynamics.”
Warning about the harms of stereotypes, which stifle communities from exploring new spaces.
“If they are on the fence about camping, it’s probably due to cultural stigmas in their community,” Gabriel said. “I would kindly ask them to sort of disregard what they’ve been told about the outdoors and just approach it with a more open mind, that this could truly be an experience for you.”
Natalie Hausman-Weiss, the executive director of The Woods Project, said the organization’s mission is to help high school students who would not otherwise have these wilderness experiences change their life trajectories.
“In addition to those just physical and emotional benefits, the program itself really pushes kids to learn about their potential and understand what they can do,” Hausman-Weiss said. “The program inspires them. The kids really grow, come back, and want more from their lives. Our mission is to change kids’ lives and help them change their life trajectories for the better.”
Houston’s parks
Locally, experts believe the city’s parks need to be more equitable so that all communities can access green spaces.
Houston has 721 parks, ranking among the top cities for total park acreage. Yet, according to the Trust for Public Land’s most recent ParkScore report, it sits 66 out of 100 among the country’s most populous cities.
According to the report, 64% of Houston’s residents live within a 10-minute walk from a park, while the national average is 76% and 57% for all urban cities and towns.
Dr. Robert Bullard, widely regarded as the father of the environmental justice movement and the founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, says the gap is not distributed evenly.
Bullard has spent decades documenting disparities in nature equity and why they persist, especially in Black and Brown neighborhoods.
“Houston is not a walkable city. It’s not a city that’s accessible to bikes,” Bullard told the Defender. “The low-income as well as people of color issue when it comes to having access to the parks, green space, nature trail, and nature…If you look at the larger overlay of communities that are described as nature-deprived, you can see there’s this tremendous gap between who’s nature-deprived and who’s not.”
Per the Center for American Progress, communities of color comprise 74% of those living in nature-deprived areas, of which more than half are Black and Latino, with white communities making up the remaining 26%. The Trust for Public Land data localizes the disparity. Residents in Houston’s low-income neighborhoods have 41% less park space.
“We know there are tremendous health benefits of nature, physical and mental health and wellbeing,” Bullard added. “When you are deprived of access to nature, as well as parks, green space, nature trails, it shows up in terms of those health outcomes.”
The Memorial Hermann Community Health Needs Assessment, published in 2025, supports this on the public health side.
“You start naming the neighborhoods that historically are recognizable as Black and Brown and you can isolate where there’s lack of park infrastructure and where there is and where there are parks. The parks themselves are not of the same quality and investments in terms of the upkeep, as well as the amenities that make those parks desirable.”
Dr. Robert Bullard, father of the environmental justice movement and the founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University
It identified “neighborhood and built environment” as a key driver of health disparities across the Houston metro area, noting that communities with well-maintained parks and sidewalks tend to support better physical and mental health outcomes, while those facing disinvestment are at increased risk of chronic disease and social isolation.
The funding problem
Kenneth Allen, Director of the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, acknowledges that funding stands in the way of Houston’s park equity.
“Funding is the number one barrier. It takes a lot of money,” Allen told the Defender. “We can’t create new green spaces or improve amenities without the proper funding. “We’re almost last in public funding in terms of the park system, but we’re number two in public funding in terms of private support, so it balances out when you look at us in other cities creating access, acquiring more parks, maintaining the parks, and redeveloping parks.”
The department’s master plan aims to achieve a 10-minute walk to a park for all Houston residents. Allen said that the Bayou trail system, now over 150 miles of connected parks through the Sims, Brace, and Buffalo Bayous, is a crucial part of the effort
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“That gives residents access to a trail, to park amenities, and to green spaces,” Allen said. “We know where the shortages are. Working with all of our partners through our master plan, developing parks, we’re tackling that.
Not interested? Not true
One of the most persistent narratives surrounding Black communities and the outdoors is that they simply are not interested.
Ivy L. Walls, a third-generation farmer in Houston’s Southside and founder of Ivy Leaf Farms, committed to advancing food equity in Black communities, said such stereotypes were “marketed through a white lens or a lens that doesn’t glorify the beauty of how we spend our time outdoors.”
She said that if all communities had equal access to outdoor spaces, such narratives would not exist.
“If we had large, beautiful parks like other neighborhoods, they would be filled with people easily,” Walls said. “If we had enough trees and shade, the safety to be outdoors, it would be cool.”
McGowans sees the same myth play out in personal conversations.
“[For] Black people, our roots are outdoors,” she said. “We have been nature-connected people for a very long time if you trace back our roots. It’s only recently that it’s become a thing where I’ve heard, like from my own family, the outdoor stuff is white people’s stuff. Outdoor activities are not presented to Black children so that they get to have that experience early in their lives to try it out.”
She relates the gap to measurable impacts. After being diagnosed with high blood pressure, McGowans tracked her readings for months, and the only day it was “where it was supposed to be” was the day she went kayaking.
While policies surrounding green spaces remain inequitable for all communities in Houston, Black folk have started a movement of their own. They are forming running clubs, kayaking on a nice summer afternoon, forming hiking and biking groups, and taking up space in the outdoors.
