Hikers climb up a hill at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
The Pulse

From Lands End to Golden Gate: Discovering African American History on San Francisco’s Coast!

By Zoë Polk

This account of a recent Outdoor Afro hike in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area describes how the histories of African Americans and their experiences in nature are part of the learning that takes place during Outdoor Afro’s adventures. Often these histories are left out of “official” interpretive materials.

Outdoor Afro
The Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River. The map shows stream courses from sections of Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Introduction

Introduction to Issue Two

We commonly think of rivers as, for the most part, staying where they belong, in the river bed, occasionally coming out into the floodplain under fairly predictable conditions conducive to high water that we call “floods.” The writing in this issue of Open Rivers belies this notion of predictability, to a large degree.