Birding is one of the whitest things a person can do. So says Dr. J. Drew Lanham, a lifelong birdwatcher.
As a Black man in South Carolina, he knows that he doesn’t fit many people’s perceptions of a birder. To illustrate the point, Lanham recalls the time he was birding and a man pulled up beside him to tell him about the “[n-words] who used to pick cotton” in that very area.
Pointedly, he also shared that he was carrying a gun.
On Sept. 28, Lanham, an ornithologist and wildlife ecology professor at Clemson University, is slated to deliver VCU Libraries’ 2023 social justice lecture. His topic will be “Coloring the Conservation Conversation.” His focus is on how Black people’s historical relationship to land influences their present perceptions of nature, its appreciation and stewardship.
Lanham grew up in rural Edgefield, South Carolina, just north of Augusta. He can trace his roots to a slave named Harry who was brought to the area around 1790. He recalls a childhood where friends were few and far between, but he was surrounded by all kinds of birds.
“I remember my grandmother feeding sparrows, in constant war with the Blue jays over the pecans on her tree. And not to mock owls because they’re bad omens,” he recalls. “She called yellow billed cuckoos ‘rain crows’ because they came before a storm. She didn’t need to know birds’ Latin or common names, because she understood them in the context of how she knew them. She was the first ornithologist I knew.”
“There’s an important convergence here between civil rights and environmental justice,” he explains. “It’s the same air, same water, same earth that we share, and time and resources are limited.”
His passion for birdwatching, a hobby that scored few cool points with fellow teens, went underground during his high school years, but remained integral to who he was. English and science classes provided outlets for his growing interest in the feathered world. “I lived in one county and went to school in another, so I was a social misfit,” he says. “In the same way a bird has a range, I had a school range and a home range, and they didn’t overlap.”
Lanham became a national figure in 2013 when Orion magazine published his “Nine Rules for Black Birdwatchers.” In writing the satirical essay, he sought to provoke and make people think outside of themselves with the nine points derived from his lived experience as a Black birder. From “Carry your binoculars – and three forms of identification – at all times” to “don’t bird in a hoodie. Ever,” Lanham used wit and wisdom to make his points. “My goal was to bring binoculars down and consciousness up,” he says. “I wanted people to laugh and then think about why they laughed.”
A few years later, in an effort to call out overt racism, he wrote “Nine Rules for the Woke Birdwatcher,” which recommended adopting Harriett Tubman, who used an owl call to identify herself, rather than James Audubon as a bird-loving inspiration – and renaming birds named after slave owners. Suggestions such as “Be bold. Speak up. Identify racism as you would call out a crow among snow buntings” and “silence lets the oppression grow unchecked” mirror Lanham’s own philosophy about how anyone can become an environmental conservation activist.
Lanham is not just an ornithologist, college professor, author and conservation activist, however. He’s also a poet whose love of words and nature converges in what he considers an elemental form. “Man has always told stories lyrically in caves and around the campfire,” he says. “It was a way to communicate not just with the head but with the heart.”
Pointing out that it’s easy to stay in our silos and maintain the status quo, Lanham spreads the gospel that inclusion is protest. By including someone who is not usually allowed or not traditionally seen in certain realms, it causes a disruption. Bringing a pot roast to a vegan meal can be a protest. “Protest has to be disruptive to cause change in practices and policy,” Lanham insists. “We need to figure out how to disrupt in a way that brings about discourse, not division.”
While birding might not immediately come to mind as a likely topic for VCU Libraries’ social justice lecture, Lanham, like VCU, sees it differently. The topic is part of a larger national conversation about Black people reclaiming their place in the outdoors. He finds it hopeful that VCU is thinking outside the box.
“There’s an important convergence here between civil rights and environmental justice,” he explains. “It’s the same air, same water, same earth that we share, and time and resources are limited. We need to figure out how to bring fairness and equity into all our lives.”
“Coloring the Conservation Conversation” with Dr. J. Drew Lanham will be held on Thursday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. at James Branch Cabell Lecture Hall and remotely via Zoom. Registration for both required.
