Editor’s note: The Ground Beneath Us is a new column that will appear quarterly in print and online.
I grew up moving between two landscapes that could not have felt more different, yet together shaped my definition of home and later my life’s purpose: to inspire others to reconnect with our natural world and to one another.
Along Skyline Boulevard in Oakland, where I attended Skyline High in the ’80s, the ridgeline was topped with Monterey pines and eucalyptus, with pockets of redwoods tucked into the cooler folds of the hills. On warm afternoons, the wind moved through the trees with a low rushing sound, and the sharp scent of eucalyptus drifted through my open bedroom window. After school and on weekends, that ridge became our playground. We rode bikes along Skyline, amid the horses and runners, all moving steadily into the trails of Joaquin Miller and Reinhardt Redwood Regional parks. We learned the rhythm of those hills by heart.
From the East Bay Hills, the highways ran north, then leaned east through wine country and over the shoulder of Cobb Mountain toward Lake County, where my family kept a second home on a 14-acre ranch and orchard in Lower Lake, a small, sleepy gateway to the recreational draw of Clear Lake, California’s largest freshwater lake. In the span of two hours, the coast-influenced landscape gave way to dry grasslands and rolling oak woodlands. The air grew warmer. The light sharpened. Dust rose behind my dad’s 1979 El Camino truck tires on summer afternoons, and the scent of sun-warmed earth carried across the fields.
Our ranch was a place of work as much as wonder. We tended trees and gardens, cared for animals, hunted, fished, and explored the nearby creek. It was there I learned what it meant to live with the land and its wildlife rather than simply pass through it.
On the Sunday-afternoon drive home, the first signal that we were nearing the Bay came around Vallejo. The marine layer would roll in across the Carquinez Strait, softening the horizon and cooling the air. Even as a child, I learned to recognize it. The light dimmed slightly. The breeze turned cool. The faint smell of salt carried inland. Vallejo, where I now live, was the doorway. Oakland was home.
Those early experiences shaped how I see the outdoors today. They taught me that landscapes are not just scenery. They are places where people learn skills, traditions, and a kind of hospitality that can last across generations.
Those lessons eventually led me to create Outdoor Afro.
What began as a small blog and a handful of local Bay Area outings in 2009 has grown into a national network of volunteers who guide hikes, paddling trips, camping excursions, fishing outings, and family experiences in nature. From the beginning, the Bay Area has been central to that work. Outdoor Afro emerged within a landscape that many people have spent decades working to protect.
I remain deeply grateful for the many advocates who protected and stewarded these places long before I was born. Because of their work, millions of people today can step outside and experience nature within minutes of home.
What makes the Bay Area especially remarkable is the way its landscapes mirror its communities. Walk through the redwoods of the East Bay Hills, or a trail along the shoreline, and you will hear multiple languages carried on the breeze. Families share picnic tables beside anglers casting lines into the water. Cyclists pass hikers, while birdwatchers scan the marsh for migrating shorebirds.
Outdoor Afro speaks to one particular patch in that larger quilt. Our focus is on reconnecting Black families and individuals with outdoor spaces where they can build skills, confidence, and lasting relationships with the land. I have seen what happens when that connection takes hold.
During Outdoor Afro outings, a group might reach a ridge and the conversation slows. Someone points out a red-tailed hawk circling overhead. Another notices the scent of bay laurel. Children stop to watch clusters of ladybugs gather in the redwoods, asking questions as they go.
In those moments, the landscape does its quiet work.
The Bay Area offers an astonishing range of places where this connection can happen: fog-draped coastal bluffs, oak woodlands alive with spring wildflowers, tidal wetlands slowly returning to life along the Bay’s edge. Each landscape carries its own story of geology, ecology, and human care.
In this column, I hope to explore those stories. Some essays will reflect on moments outdoors that remind me why this work matters. Others will highlight the people whose dedication continues to protect and restore the landscapes of the Bay Area. And sometimes I will simply pause to notice the details that make these places remarkable. Many hands have shaped the ground beneath us.
