Damarius Johnson
This afternoon I’m speaking with Dustin. So I just wanted to know if you could say a bit about yourself, introduce yourself as a researcher, and any professional affiliation you’d like to also mention.

Dustin Meier
Hi, so yeah, my name is Dustin Meier, I recently finished my PhD in history at Ohio State. I studied the urban, environmental, and social history of the 20th century United States. I’m interested in the intersection of race and the environment and sort of looking at the sort of environmental history of marginalized populations. I’m currently working as a visiting professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, teaching American environmental history and global environmental history. And I’m looking to, you know, at some point in my career become a full time professor.

Damarius Johnson
Wonderful. So our next question, if you could just talk a bit about the purposes of studying history, why you think that that’s significant for the present, and what that can tell us about the future?

Dustin Meier
Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times when people sort of discuss current political, social, economic issues, a lot of times a lot of the things that’s missing, both in just conversations among friends or and, you know, decision making at the policy level, or the economic level, or things like that, is important context for social issues and other sort of political issues and things like that. And I think that one thing that history does is provides important context for people to sort of understand their current moment a little bit better to sort of understand the trajectory and the change over time to how we’ve gotten to where we are. I think historians often say, you know, we can’t predict the future, but we can tell you sort of how we’ve gotten to our present moment. I think that’s the importance of studying history is to sort of understand, you know, why we’re here and how we got here, and sort of what some of the next steps that that we can be. And so I think the overarching importance of studying history is to sort of, yeah, tell us sort of how we got to where we are and sort of how that can help us make our decision for moving forward.

Damarius Johnson
Yeah, so can we talk in particular about “Wade in the Water” and this particular story? You could talk about maybe how you found the images. What was it about the story that you thought is significant to share?

Dustin Meier
Yeah, so I, I came across this essay, I was trying to find images that really relay the importance of the intersection of the natural environment with the wider African American experience in American history. And so in my own research, I look at the history of summer camps. And so I was looking at summer camps, I was looking at city parks and state parks and other sort of natural spaces. Resorts play sort of an important role in the African American community in the 20th century. And so I was looking at different natural spaces, and I stumbled upon upon this image of a beach. And, you know, for people living in the Jim Crow South in the early 20th century, you know, the beach was a very important part of life, both as an economic resource as well as sort of a source of recreation. And so I came across this image, and I thought it was really powerful image, because it sort of highlights an untold moment in the history of the Black freedom struggle. You know, we think about bus boycotts and public schools and we think about lunch counter sit-ins and things like that. We don’t always think about the natural environment, sort of how that interacts with the Black freedom struggle. And so I was attracted to that image, specifically for you know, what it does in that way, sort of unveiling an aspect of the Black freedom struggle that isn’t always told in contemporary narratives. And so that was, you know, what kind of drew me to the picture, and then it was also just a really powerful image. It was an image that was, had a lot going on, and a lot of different things that you could sort of pinpoint and analyze, you know, larger, larger big picture stuff.

Damarius Johnson
Yeah, so I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit more about the kind of environmental access, because one of the themes that you wrote about, and I would be interested if you could talk more about, is travel. And one of the things you mentioned is that travel is unsafe. So having access to local beaches, is a really important struggle to have access to local leisure. So I was wondering if you could talk a bit about why travel would have been unsafe in that time?

Dustin Meier
Yeah, so for African Americans, you know, traveling during that period, it was always unsafe to stop at, you know, certain gas stations, or certain diners where they might not have, you know, been welcomed. And so for African Americans planning their vacations or planning, you know, large, long distance trips throughout the American South, it was always a struggle. There was always, you know, trouble to sort of plan out their route and make sure that they didn’t end up in certain areas that were unsafe after the sun went down and things like that. And so yeah, travel was unsafe for African Americans and access to natural spaces was also sort of a matter of life and death in a time when people didn’t always have, you know, before air-conditioning, access to sort of a cool environment was sort of difficult and so you know, going to the beach and going to other parks, you know, being outside was a way to cool down in the South. And so for African Americans, they had to travel a lot more than the white population. And so that was sort of a, sort of another element that, you know, contributes to sort of their, you know, racial oppression in the, in the Jim Crow South.

Damarius Johnson
Yes, and another aspect of the kind of environmental context is thinking about access on one end, and then also exposure to unsafe environments. So, I wonder if you could talk a bit about kind of how that is also disproportionate.

Dustin Meier
Yeah, and so you know, the the contrary, the other side of African Americans’ lack of access to certain spaces was the spaces that they had to go to, right? And so you know, everyone wanted to find a place where they could play, a place where they could cool off. The white population, you know, usually had ready access to beaches in the Jim Crow South, but they also had access to certain parks and certain places where they could get some fresh air, spend time in the grass, spend time away from the asphalt and things like that. For African Americans, a lot of times, they had to go to parks that were, you know, polluted by, you know, nearby industry or streams that were polluted. They didn’t always have access to the same sort of clean water, clean air, clean soil that, you know, the white population did. And so that’s, you know, what historians have called environmental racism as sort of another aspect of Jim Crow segregation that isn’t always told. But it’s an important part of that story, because, you know, it sort of makes up where people spend their time, whether they’re at home or at work, or at play, if your environment is toxic, or environmentally dangerous, that can be detrimental. And in the Jim Crow South, it was overwhelmingly detrimental for African Americans.

Damarius Johnson
Could you give us some sense of whether or not this context of environmental racism is specific to the Jim Crow South, or is this also present in northern cities in access to leisure space?

Dustin Meier
Environmental racism is a very pervasive thing in the 20th century history of the United States, both for people in the Jim Crow South, but when African Americans, you know, migrate north to places like Chicago, or New York City, or if they go west to Los Angeles, they’re still experiencing this, especially in these larger industrial cities, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, where they’re, you know, due to housing discrimination or job discrimination, they’re living and working next to factories, next to industry, that’s sort of polluting their environment. So they’re experiencing, you know, disproportionate amounts of asthma and other sort of, you know, environmental diseases. And so environmental racism, the history of environmental racism is not just a product of the Jim Crow South, but it’s sort of a product of sort of every, every context throughout the United States in the post Civil War period and certainly before as well.

Damarius Johnson
You mentioned the, kind of, typical ways that we understand civil rights history, the civil rights movement in terms of like these serious political contexts, but could you talk about some of the ways that thinking about leisure helps us to think more broadly about what protests meant in this time period?

Dustin Meier
When you look at the access to leisure and the access to recreation as an element of the Black freedom struggle, it really helps you to understand how pervasive Jim Crow segregation was. African Americans weren’t just prevented from being able to vote or to express their political rights or their economic rights, they were also unable to enjoy their free time as much as white America. So it helps you to sort of realize that Jim Crow segregation wasn’t just this economic and political system and structure, it was also something that impacted sort of every minute aspect of daily life that we might not think about. I also think one thing about the Black freedom struggle that I really learned in graduate school was sort of how chronologically diverse it is. And so it’s not just the middle decades of the 20th century, when we, you know, when we talk about Martin Luther King and other sort of like, major figures, but you know, African Americans had been fighting for their, you know, political, economic, social freedom, you know, since the 1600s. And when you look at the natural environment, as sort of an aspect of that, I think it sort of broadens our scope, because the natural environment is always there. And it’s always an element of either racial oppression or racial empowerment. So it provides, I think, a lens for giving us that, that wider chronological scope.

Damarius Johnson
Yeah, so just to be clear, I know that you addressed this in your answer, but just just so that it’s maybe obvious or explicit, could you talk about whether or not this access to leisure and this, kind of these movements to have greater access to recreation is also part of a longer Black freedom struggle that’s not just about beaches in the particular story, but could be thought about more broadly? Could you give us a sense of whether that that’s an accurate characterization?

Dustin Meier
I think a big part of looking at the wider history of access to leisure spaces is looking at the wider history of African Americans’ relationship with the natural environment. And so if we go all the way back to the mid 19th century, when people, when white Americans are sort of romanticizing nature and the natural environment as a place outside of civilization, and a place where you can go to find recreation or to find spirituality or things like that, you know, African Americans who were enslaved in the south knew it as a place of terror and a place of labor and a place of having their families, you know, separated and things like that. And so African Americans have historically not had the same relationship with the natural environment that white Americans had. And when you get to the 20th century, and African Americans are either, you know, trying to make their way in the Jim Crow South, or traveling north to places like Chicago and New York and Cleveland, Pittsburgh, they’re sort of flipping that relationship. And they’re learning how to find the natural environment as a space where they can sort of escape white supremacy and to escape racial oppression and sort of enjoy spending time in nature building community, sort of, you know, using their free time to sort of enjoy themselves. And so there’s sort of a shift from the pre-Civil War period to the 20th century. And obviously, that’s an oversimplification, but like, the way that African Americans engage with nature and sort of think about nature changes in that period. So I think that is sort of an important aspect of the story.

Damarius Johnson
Sure, and is there an element of interracial collaboration? So we can think about areas, kind of, spaces of protests, like schools or polls, and we see this kind of interracial coalition building as part of this larger resistance struggle. I wanted to know if these leisure spaces are spaces where you see the coalition, or is there a concern about, kind of, sex and recreation, which also seems to be in the air in this period. So I just wanted to know if you could talk more about that?

Dustin Meier
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that there are a lot of histories of, like I said, I kind of study the history of summer camps, there are a lot of summer camps that are interracial as early as, you know, the 1930s, 1940s. Whether they’re hosted by groups like the Camp Fire Girls, or social settlement houses, which are sort of, you know, social service agencies in cities, there are a lot of interracial summer camps as early as the 1940s. You know, before, before Brown v Board, there are also, you know, a lot of beaches that becomes sort of interracial pretty early on in places like New York City, which are, you know, very interracial places at that time. And so there certainly are interracial spaces, there aren’t as many as you know, you know, maybe we think there should be. The natural environment, still, for the most part is a pretty segregated space in the 20th century United States, and, you know, some would argue, is still today. But there are certainly, you know, examples of interracial spaces in the natural environment and interracial shared spaces. And, of course, you know, as I sort of tried to argue in my piece, you know, that is something that, you know, upset people, white people in power, was the sort of interracial commingling of, you know, Black men and white women, and vice versa, for a lot of people. And so the the interracial aspects, sort of, you know, there are a lot of like, moments of hope and like, you know, we can have this interracial space, and then there are a lot of moments of, you know, clamping down oppression that we see elsewhere throughout society.

Damarius Johnson
Yes, wonderful. Thank you for expanding on that, I think that’ll be really helpful for thinking about all the different ways that this essay can be taught and understood and interpreted as we think about what the images tell us and also how they fit in a broader narrative, so I really appreciate expanding that out.

Dustin Meier
Yeah, of course.

Damarius Johnson
I want to shift to a series of questions about Black History Month more generally. And I’ll start with if you can talk about your earliest memories of Black History Month.

Dustin Meier
Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. And so I went to, you know, a pretty, pretty wealthy, progressive school, we learned about Black History Month. Growing up, I think, what I learned sort of getting a graduate degree in American history is that we sort of learned the, you know, the big hits, we learned about Martin Luther King, we learned about sort of the mainstream civil rights movement. But yeah, I was exposed to it sort of early on, I was exposed to, you know, thinking, thinking critically about American history and sort of like seeing the Black experience as sort of an important part of it.

Damarius Johnson
Yes, so could you talk a bit more about if you commemorate the holiday today? Is there anything that you do that is particularly distinct or significant?

Dustin Meier
Yeah, I think both during Black History Month, and as well as throughout the rest of the year, I’m always trying to sort of educate my friends and family who might not be reading all these, you know, all these dense history books that I’m reading. Especially, you know, in graduate school, I had a lot of friends sort of outside of graduate school that had never heard of the history of redlining or the history of the urban crisis in the United States. And those were things that I was, you know, happy to talk about and sort of highlights these sorts of aspects of African American history that don’t really get told in the grade school level. And so I would say the way I celebrate is kind of to sort of informally sort of educate people and you know, try to always have discussions about African American History and to never make people feel uncomfortable about talking about African American history to just keep keep the dialogue going, I guess.

Damarius Johnson
Yes, and I wanted to ask about that, in particular, in terms of the kind of mainstream significance and importance that is a sign of Black History Month is a particular opportunity to study African American history. If you think that it continues to be relevant and relevant to observe the holiday today, seeing that it does have such mainstream visibility, there are places you can study kind of throughout the year, you think that it’s important still to have a particular time in the calendar that is devoted to studying African American history?

Dustin Meier
I think it’s important, mostly because so much of this history, as we know, has been forgotten. And if we are not proactive, as as citizens, you know, we can forget about some of these narratives. I remember like the, a couple years ago, when it was like the anniversary of the Tulsa massacre that was kind of the main narrative was everyone saying, like, why did I never learn about this, or whatever. Like, why, you know, why have I never heard of this? And so uncovering these moments in African American history is something that is not going to be, like, you can’t be passive about it. You have to, you have to keep celebrating it. Keep having the difficult discussions, be proactive about it. So that, you know, the difficult things to talk about, as well as the things to celebrate, you know, don’t get forgotten that we’re always, you know, thinking about them.

Damarius Johnson
Sure. And I wanted to know if you could talk about, you mentioned kind of informal ways that you educate folks about about this history throughout the year, if, kind of, what are the avenues or media that you use, as I’m thinking about how educators might engage with this material that you find like documentaries to be particularly useful, or photographs particularly useful? Just any insight you can give about how you might teach this history formally, or informally,

Dustin Meier
Having multiple ways of talking about African American history or just history in general is always helpful. Looking at images is always helpful to, for educators, you know, to just sort of throw an image image up on the board and say, okay, what are some of our, like, gut reactions to this image, and then, you know, using that as a source of discussion to talk about wider, bigger issues. Documentaries are always helpful to give, sort of, people, you know, more context, something that has a little bit more entertainment value. And also, you know, documentaries that involve, sort of, primary sources or interviews of people in the 60s or 70s, or whatever, that can be really useful in sort of engaging people with primary sources in history. So I think, yeah, multiple modalities is helpful – images, documentaries, movies, as well as sources and primary sources. And like using textbooks to think critically about the sources, sort of like approaching it from different angles.

Damarius Johnson
Wonderful, wonderful. So I wanted to know, if you could highlight, are there, as you went through the, kind of, editing process, other kind of contexts, figures, events that you wanted to include that maybe you didn’t have space for? Or other things folks should know about the context of recreation and leisure that you wrote about in particular or environmental history more broadly? Please share with us.

Dustin Meier
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that one story that I wanted to highlight a little bit more is the specific urban context. So you know, I’m writing about Savannah, which is a city in the South, but African Americans are also, you know, starting to populate places like New York and Chicago, as I’ve mentioned. And those people are finding nature in different ways, right, they’re going to city parks, they’re maybe even just going to playgrounds, they’re going to the beach in Chicago, things like that. I would love to sort of explore that narrative a little bit, because not only is that population using nature as a space where they can express themselves and sort of, you know, get away from their daily life and to get away from white supremacy and things like that. But they also, it’s something that is new to them, right? And so if they’re attending a summer camp, or going through a resort, that might just be something completely new for them. And so that dynamic I think, is interesting to me, sort of how people who are predominantly used the urban environment, what do they think about the natural environment? And so I’d like to explore that a little bit more for sure.

Damarius Johnson
Yes, and are there other prominent figures in these histories? So as you mentioned, the kind of like standard, you know, Martin Luther King, kind of narratives, African American history, you know, broadly and you think about politics, we think about this context about African American environmental history, are there particular names that should be in the forefront of everyone’s mind as they think about these stories?

Dustin Meier
So Carl Stokes was the first African American mayor of Cleveland. I think he’s an important figure. He was the first African American mayor of a major city, in Cleveland in the late 1960s. And a big part of sort of his political agenda, and his agenda as mayor was to clean up the city. He was a very environmentally minded mayor. And that, I think, he’s one of many African Americans who were living in cities, in particularly in the post-war period, who saw the environmental conditions of African Americans in inner cities and, you know, realized that having better garbage pickup or having, you know, not having lead in the water, and things like that was an important sort of political aspect of the African American freedom struggle in the urban context in the post-war years. So that’s one figure. A lot of these figures are just, you know, regular people, right, environmental justice activists who see something in their community that they’re, you know, realizing is unjust, and an important part of a political oppression that they’re facing. And so a lot of these people are, you know, people we don’t really know about, and people that don’t show up in the historical record, and that, you know, historians can do a lot of work to highlight.

Damarius Johnson
Sure. So in terms of that element that you just mentioned about this, everyday participants, when you think about the like legacies of this work, in trying to draw attention to the fact that leisure is the space that folks had to fight for, do you think that, kind of, the contemporary extension of this tradition, I mean, does it exist among everyday people? Or would you locate it in a certain kind of region of the country? Or how would you define what the legacy is at this moment?

Dustin Meier
That’s a good question. Because I think the natural environment is still a very segregated space, in terms of looking at national parks and state parks and other sort of leisure spaces, it still tends to be, you know, a very, you know, white dominated space. And for whatever reason, a lot of African Americans and other minorities might not have access to these spaces. But I also think a lot of dialogue about, you know, a lot of people talk about, like nature deficit disorder, like the idea that children don’t have access to nature in the way that they maybe used to, and, you know, with the advent of smartphones, and technology and things like that, that that is particularly damaging. So there’s a lot of rhetoric about, like, what good can come from access to nature and engagement with nature and things like that. And I really think that a lot of that rhetoric sort of misses the sort of racial, racial inequality of of our society, you know, not only do children need to have access to the natural environment, but I think they need to interact with it, with people they might not interact with on a daily basis. I think that, you know, interracial spaces where people are interacting with the natural environment with people who aren’t of their race, I think are beneficial both for people’s natural engagement as well as with society. And I also think that, you know, African Americans, you know, working class populations in inner cities don’t always get to have sort of the same access to nature that other people do. And so I think that a lot of our thinking about nature and our need for nature as a society would benefit from thinking more critically about racial inequality and other elements of inequality in society.

Damarius Johnson
Thank you. I think that’s that’s a wonderful way to close.