Black Birders Week | |
---|---|
Type | Environmental |
Significance | Increase the visibility of Black birders |
Ends | First week of June |
Date | Last week of May |
Frequency | Annual |
Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight black nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when they are engaged in outdoor activities. [1] The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM Collective. [2]
Black Birders Week was announced on Twitter on May 29, 2020. [3] [1] The initiative was prompted in part by the Central Park birdwatching incident and the murders of African Americans such as Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. [4] [5] [6] According to co-founder Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, the goal of the initiative is "normalizing the fact that Black people exist in the birding and natural sciences community". [7] Black people have historically been excluded from academic and professional spaces and lack visibility and representation in the natural sciences community and among birders in particular. [7] [8]
The week-long event was conceived and organized by members of a group of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals and students known as BlackAFinSTEM collective. In addition to Opoku-Agyeman, other co-founders include Jason Ward, Sheridan Alford, Danielle Belleny, Chelsea Connor, Joseph Saunders, and Tykee James. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
The first event series ran in 2020 from May 31 to June 5 using the #BlackBirdersWeek hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. Through these events and others, the series highlighted research carried out by Black birders, the happiness they find in nature, the racism experienced, and the importance of inclusivity in the outdoors. [15] Furthermore, the series drew attention to several Black birders and naturalists, including Birds of North America 's host Jason Ward, wildlife biologist J. Drew Lanham, wildlife conservationist Corina Newsome, National Audubon Society's government affairs coordinator Tykee James, and herpetologist Earyn McGee. [16] [17] The series was endorsed and promoted by advocacy groups, conservation organizations, and government agencies including: the National Audubon Society, [18] the American Birding Association, [19] the American Bird Conservancy, [20] [21] the US National Park Service, [22] and the Ecological Society of America. [23] Additionally, it garnered attention from various science and mainstream media outlets.
In 2021, the week was continued. [24] [25] [26]
In 2022, Black Birders Week was continued. The Smithsonian Institution hosted several programs to support the week's effort to increasing representation in bird watching communities. [27] The National Museum of Natural History hosted a panel with Chelsea Connor, Lynette Strickland and Amelia-Juliette Demery with opening remarks by Dara M. Wilson. [27]
In response to the 2020 series, the National Wildlife Federation planned to dedicate part of their Conservation Fellowship and Intern Programs [28] to young biologists of color. [29] The organisers intend to continue the series in future years. [4] The event also inspired other similar week-long events celebrating Black people in various STEM fields, #BlackInAstro week, #BlackBotanistsWeek,#BlackInNeuro, and #BlackInChem . [30] [31]
The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world. There are completely independent Audubon Societies in the United States, which were founded several years earlier such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Indiana Audubon Society, and Connecticut Audubon Society. The societies are named for 19th century naturalist John James Audubon.
Attwater's prairie chicken is a highly endangered subspecies of the greater prairie chicken that is native to coastal Texas and formerly Louisiana in the United States.
Black Twitter is an internet community largely consisting of the Black diaspora of users on the social network X, focused on issues of interest to the black community Feminista Jones described it in Salon as "a collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community proving adept at bringing about a wide range of sociopolitical changes." A similar Black Twitter community arose in South Africa in the early 2010s.
Hashtag activism refers to the use of Twitter's hashtags for Internet activism. The hashtag has become one of the many ways that social media contributes to civic engagement and social movements. The use of the hashtag on social media provides users with an opportunity to share information and opinions about social issues in a way that others (followers) can interact and engage as part of a larger conversation with the potential to create change. The hashtag itself consists of a word or phrase that is connected to a social or political issue, and fosters a place where discourse can occur. Social media provides an important platform for historically marginalized populations. Through the use of hashtags these groups are able to communicate, mobilize, and advocate for issues less visible to the mainstream.
Dudley Edmondson is an American writer and photographer specializing primarily in outdoors and nature writing and photography. He currently lives in Duluth, Minnesota. His books include What's That Flower?, and The Black & Brown Faces in America's Wild Places, the latter focusing on African Americans in the outdoors, a subject on which he has spoken widely across the United States and for which a fellowship administered by the Greater Seattle YMCA was named for him.
Ashley Lindalía Walker is an astrochemist, science communicator, and activist. In response to police brutality against Black Americans and sparked by the success of Black Birders Week, Walker co-organized #BlackinChem, #BlackInAstro, and #BlackInPhysics to highlight and amplify the voices of Black researchers and scholars in these fields.
Jason Ward is an American naturalist, birder, and activist. He hosted the 2019 television documentary series Birds of North America, and is the co-founder and former CEO of "The BlackAFinSTEM Collective".
Corina Newsome is an American ornithologist, birder, science communicator, and graduate student at Georgia Southern University. In response to the racism faced by Black birder Christian Cooper in Central Park, Newsome co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a Ghanaian-born American activist and writer. She is a co-founder and former CEO of the Sadie Collective, as well as a co-founder and co-organizer of Black Birders Week.
Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
The year 2020 in birding and ornithology.
Bird Names for Birds is a campaign to change the common names of American birds named after people, and to redress the recognition in ornithology of figures with racist or colonial pasts. Launched in June 2020 by ornithologists Jordan E. Rutter and Gabriel Foley with a public petition, in the midst of the George Floyd protests and in the aftermath of an incident in Central Park that paved the way to Black Birders Week, the movement emerged after several years of social activism by multiple American ornithologists and birders, many of whom are not affiliated with Bird Names for Birds but remain devoted to the cause. The inaugural petition, dated June 22, 2020, and co-signed by 182 individuals, urged the American Ornithological Society (AOS) to "acknowledge the issue of eponymous and honorific common names, to outline a plan to change harmful common names, and to prioritize the implementation of this plan". In 2023, the AOS formally announced that it would change all English-language bird names that are named directly after people.
Deja Perkins is an American urban ecologist. She has spoken out vocally against racism in STEM fields, is a co-organizer of Black Birders Week, and is president of the BlackAFinSTEM collective. She is currently a graduate student at North Carolina State University.
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Black In Neuro is a grassroots initiative that looks to connect, celebrate and amplify black voices working in neuroscience. In particular, Black in Neuro looked to increase visibility of black neuroscientists, who face challenges in navigating the majority white world of academia. The group was created as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the #BLACKandSTEM initiatives that were inspired worldwide. The inaugural event ran from July 27 – August 2, 2020, and they have hosted annual Black In Neuro Week events since.
Tiara Moore works at the Washington state branch of The Nature Conservancy. She is known for her leadership in organizing the Black in Marine Science week and her work in social activism.
Tanisha Marie Williams is an American botanist and the founder of #BlackBotanistsWeek. Williams created the hashtag in 2020 as an initiative to promote Black botanists and to share their work and life experiences on social media. She was inspired after seeing similar initiatives for Black scientists in other fields. Williams' doctoral work focused on predicting plant adaptability to climate change, specifically plants in the Pelargonium genus in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa.
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Chelsea Connor is a Dominican herpetologist and birder. Her research concerns the interaction between native and introduced Anolis lizards in the Commonwealth of Dominica. While a student, she co-founded #BlackBirdersWeek. She is an advocate for Black people in the United States being out in nature, and feeling safer when they do so.
Ashley Gary is an American science communicator and co-organizer for #BlackBirdersWeek.