Yet safety and comfort have remained persistent themes in my personal journey outdoors, and in the conversations I have with the people in Outdoor Afro, the organization I founded in 2009 that reconnects Black Americans to nature. That was the first time I understood that some of the most consequential conversations outdoors occur in silence. The uncertainty over safety outdoors, especially far from one’s own community or in remote public lands, remained. Every invitation, every trip, every first outdoor experience expands what the next generation believes to be possible. This article appeared in the August 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “The conversations we don’t have about safety outdoors.”