#national parks and monuments

[goingplacesfarandnear]

Utah Adventure Day 3-4: Grand Staircase-Escalante Poses Challenge

Hiking Big Horn Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com By Karen Rubin, with Laini Miranda and Dave E. Leiberman Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a Delaware-sized museum of sedimentary erosion that takes you down a 200-million-year-old “staircase” – a series of plateaus that descend from…

[lockvogel]

Sunset in White Sands National Park

New Mexico

Have a great weekend, everyone 😊!

[rateducates]

I won't stop sharing this. I simply can't. The American people need to know.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/open-for-business-the-trump-revolution-on-public-lands

[thomaswaynewolf]

[sinigangrobot]

Soupbot's online store

My online shop is open! 👉 https://s0upbot.bigcartel.com/

With my convention season over, I'm looking to get rid of my stock this year--I'm also opening my merch for international orders!

A friendly reminder that my commissions are open (over here) 👉 https://sinigangrobot.tumblr.com/post/758610771631636480/

Reblogs appreciated!

[wandering-jana]

Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

Flagstaff, Arizona

2018

[housecow]

the acronym for carlsbad cavern national park is CAVE (hilarious) bc otherwise it’d be CACA which is even funnier

[fatchance]

Posts have been very infrequent, but I'm extending my break a little longer for a roadtrip north to Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii. Fresh photos will resume when I return.

[nudityandnerdery]

Our National Park service has some of the best goddamn social media out there.

[rabbitcruiser]

Clouds (No. 1035)

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

[esteemed-excellency]

Hi guys i'm back, only relatively sunburned and really happy about the trip ✌️

Here's some pics from my beloved mountains:

[ladyaldhelm]

New Mexico Landscape (2012-2014)

[sennetrip]

Monument Valley ✨

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On May 17, the National Park Service officially determined that park rangers and other employees cannot attend Pride festivities and parades in uniform. This decision reverses a long history of allowing such participation and even having official delegation in Pride parades across the United States. Anonymous LGBTQ+ employees report feeling betrayed and note that official Pride participation in major cities is uncertain as multiple parades finalize and applications to participate in parades remain unprocessed. The move comes amid increasing crackdowns on Pride flags and LGBTQ+ people nationwide. In most cases, Republican legislators and appointees have been behind such bans, but this time, it appears the National Park Service, led by a Biden-approved director, is restricting park participation in LGBTQ+ celebrations.

The decision was first disclosed in a memo to NPS employees that did not directly address Pride but stated that “requests from employees asking to participate in uniform in a variety of events and activities, including events not organized by the NPS” conflict with National Park policy. The specific provision cited states that NPS employees cannot wear the uniform to events that would construe support for “a particular issue, position, or political party.” Applying this provision to bar Pride participation drew ire from LGBTQ+ employees who assert that LGBTQ+ Pride is not about an “issue, position, or political party,” but about identity and diversity. Employees also pointed out that the internal ERG guide allowed for participation in Pride events and that park employees had participated in Pride events with approval for years under the current set of rules.

[...] The determination that participation in Pride events could be too political is questionable. The founding documents for Stonewall National Monument relate directly to the “resources and values” of the LGBTQ+ community. Furthermore, National Park Service Resources currently live on the site call for people to “Celebrate Pride,” citing Stonewall National Monument to state that “The LGBTQ experience is a vital facet of America’s rich and diverse past.” This resource emphasizes the importance of not rendering LGBTQ people invisible, stating, “By recovering the voices that have been erased and marginalized, the NPS embarks on an important project to capture and celebrate our multi-vocal past.” By barring employees from wearing pins showing their identities and by pulling out of Pride festivals, the NPS ironically may appear to be erasing and marginalizing its LGBTQ+ employees. National Park Service employees have marched in uniform for years. According to the Bay Area Reporter, in 2014, Christine Lenhertz of the National Park Service requested that a group of LGBTQ+ park service employees be allowed to wear their uniforms in the Pride parade. They were initially banned from doing so, prompting the group to file a complaint. She then sought a ruling from the Office of the Solicitor for the Department of the Interior, who ruled that there was no reason to ban her and other LGBTQ+ people from participating in uniform. Since then, many National Park Service contingents have participated in Pride events.

Shame on you, National Park Service, for caving into anti-LGBTQ+ extremists with this cowardly move to bar their employees from attending Pride parades and events while in their NPS uniforms!

[thomaswaynewolf]

[reasonsforhope]

"When President Joe Biden signed a proclamation Tuesday establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, it marked the fulfillment of a promise Till’s relatives made after his death 68 years ago.

The Black teenager from Chicago, whose abduction, torture and killing in Mississippi in 1955 helped propel the Civil Rights Movement, is now an American story, not just a civil rights story, said Till’s cousin the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr.

“It has been quite a journey for me from the darkness to the light,” Parker said during a proclamation signing ceremony at the White House attended by dozens, including other family members, members of Congress and civil rights leaders.

“Back then in the darkness, I could never imagine the moment like this, standing in the light of wisdom, grace and deliverance,” he said.

With the stroke of Biden’s pen, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, located across three sites in two states, became federally-protected places. Before signing the proclamation, the president said he marvels at the courage of the Till family to “find faith and purpose in pain.”

“Today, on what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, we add another chapter in the story of remembrance and healing,” Biden said...

On Tuesday, reaction poured in from other elected officials and from the civil rights organizing community. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the Till national monument designation tells him “that out of pain comes power.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jefferies said the monument “places the life and legacy of Emmett Till among our nation’s most treasured memorials.”

“Black history is American history,” he said in a written statement...

Till-Mobley demanded that Emmett’s mutilated remains be taken back to Chicago for a public, open casket funeral that was attended by tens of thousands of people. Graphic images taken of Emmett’s remains, sanctioned by his mother, were published by Jet magazine and fueled the Civil Rights Movement...

Altogether, the Till national monument will include 5.7 acres (2.3 hectares) of land and two historic buildings. The Mississippi sites are Graball Landing, the spot where Emmett’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River just outside of Glendora, Mississippi, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Emmett’s killers were tried...

The Illinois site is Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago, where Emmett’s funeral was held in September 1955...

Mississippi state Sen. David Jordan, 90, was a freshman at Mississippi Valley State College in 1955 when he attended part of the trial of the two men charged with killing Emmett. As a state senator for the past 30 years, Jordan, who is Black, spearheaded fundraising for a statue of Emmett Till that was dedicated last year in Greenwood, Mississippi, a few miles from where the teenager was abducted.

On Tuesday, Jordan praised Biden for creating the Till national monument.

“It’s one of the greatest honors that a president could pay to a person, 14, who lost his life in Mississippi that’s created a movement that changed America,” Jordan told the AP."

-via AP, July 25, 2023