#BlackBirdersWeek takes on racism
SHERIDAN ALFORD’S LOVE OF BIRD-WATCHING stems from a simple fact: “Anybody can do it.” Old or young, through expensive binoculars or with the naked eye (or ear), in a bucolic park or from a city window, anyone can connect to the avian world around them. Alford, a graduate student in natural resources at the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, studies African American participation in bird-watching, trying to understand why some Black people engage in the activity and others don’t.
She’s also one of the co-founders of a social media push, #Black-BirdersWeek, which launched on May 31. The campaign was sparked by the viral video in which a white woman threatened a Black birder in New York’s Central Park, announcing that she
