Twin Cities outdoors advocate says recreation can be form of racial healing

Outdoor activity is crucial to physical, mental and even spiritual health. For Twin Cities outdoors advocate Anthony Taylor, it is also a tool for healing from racial trauma.

From biking to cross-country skiing, Taylor has devoted years to getting Black people and women onto trails and into the great outdoors in the Twin Cities area.

He has served as a Met Council Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commissioner for six years, which allows him to connect with those who run and operate the parks and continue to introduce ideas surrounding equity in outdoor spaces.

Much of his work began with a sport club that aimed to introduce Black people and women to the bike community. But eventually Taylor, 61, realized that the people who were sticking around already had an inclination to the outdoors.

"That's when I started doing other things that were introducing people to biking who didn't have a bike," Taylor said.

Earlier this year, Taylor — along with Slow Roll Twin Cities, Free Bikes 4 Kids and QBP bikes — gave hundreds of bikes to essential workers who hoped to avoid public transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the summer's protests following the police killing of George Floyd, he passed out bikes to protesters as Minnesota and the country faced a reckoning with racism and a shortage of affordable bikes.

Since the summer's protests, Taylor has seen a dramatic increase in people acting on their interest in outdoor activities. A curiosity that was dormant has begun to express itself in packed parks all summer, and as temperatures drop, on bustling ski trails.

Communities of color in the Twin Cities found themselves fatigued after the events of the summer, said Taylor, who lives in St. Paul.

"Not only is there the historical trauma — this summer percolated up real-time trauma for people," Taylor said. "And as people were looking for ways to ease anxiety, they started looking around for things to do and nature wound up being one of those things."

Minneapolis Park Board Recreation Assistant Superintendent Tyrize Cox said that due to the pandemic, the organization focused on youth programs to keep kids busy across the city. But people of all ages yearn for time outside, said Cox.

"Given all the things that we were experiencing, both with the pandemic, the unrest in the city, people were looking desperately for ways to move their bodies, and to engage with other humans; they wanted to be with people," Cox said.

Since May, Taylor said, he has begun to see people accepting that disparities in communities — in health care, education or the economy — come from historical, institutional racism.

"We see that shift showing up in different kinds of solutions making, and people making different solutions for themselves," Taylor said. "

Lower participation in outdoor activities by communities of color is a result of institutional racism, said Taylor.

"One of the conclusions that people often make about Black people, women, people who aren't outdoors, is that they're not interested," he said. "And that's totally the wrong assumption. People may be interested and still not act."

How to combat this? Taylor said a mix of investment from municipalities and the creation of positive emotional experiences for people outdoors are needed.

"I believe that a city like Minneapolis that makes significant municipal investments in outdoors, that builds their brand and identity on outdoors and connection to natural space therefore has an obligation to make it accessible to all its community members," he said.

Though the majority of recreation facilities across the city were closed due to the pandemic, the Park Board kept open rec centers in north Minneapolis, as a way of ensuring equity in their programs, Cox said.

"We recognize that north Minneapolis particularly over the summer, needed more places for kids to hang out and be safe," Cox said.

Seeing oneself is also key to building community outdoors, said Taylor. He's hiring young Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) ski instructors for the winter season, a move that aims to not only get people of color to attend lessons, but to keep coming.

Ultimately, Taylor believes that the outdoors is a needed form of self-care, especially in the wake of racial trauma and during a global pandemic.

"Black bodies in motion are the ultimate expression of freedom. Because all of white supremacy in the history of Black people in this country has been to control their body and control their mobility," Taylor said, a practice that applies to the oppression of women and immigrants as well.

"That's why for me, it's an absolute symbol, the most revolutionary act you can do is to care for yourself, to be mobile, to move your body," Taylor said. "It literally is a revolutionary act."

Zoë Jackson covers young and new voters at the Star Tribune through the Report for America program, supported by the Minneapolis Foundation.