You Can’t Be What You Can’t See: Young Legacies’ Summer Camp for Black Youth

Twin sisters Alex and Angelica Young founded nonprofit organization Young Legacies to break generational barriers to the traditional summer camp experience. Through intentional hiring, planning, fundraising, and marketing, Young Legacies aims to create a summer camp experience that is catered for Black Youth.

“Moving you from your normal element–pushing you to challenge yourself and try different things. That’s what’s so exciting about camp,” twin sisters Alex and Angelica Young reflect on the traditional summer camp experience that so many children know and love–sailing, ziplining, kayaking, a week away from your parents–what’s not to love? Well…perhaps the general lack of diversity and representation.

Alex and Angelica first witnessed the failures of traditional summer camp as counselors of YMCA Camp Silver Beach: “It was in 2005 so a lot of the terms like microaggressions and those things weren’t there, but they were certainly visible.” Now residing in Oakland, CA, the sisters imagine creating a camp in which Black youth are confident in their potential and curious about the natural world around them–without the stigma of wearing a bonnet to sleep. Alex and Angelica’s newly formed non-profit organization, Young Legacies, will provide a summer camp experience specifically catered for Black youth.

Angelica (left) and Alex (right) Young, founders of Young Legacies. Angelica and Alex Young

Summer camps are especially impactful on inner city youth for providing access to nature, which improves child development. Children who spend time in nature experience improved health and cognitive functions, strong motor coordination, reduced stress, and enhanced social skills. In addition, these children tend to excel more in school by performing better on standardized tests, demonstrating more enthusiasm toward school, and having fewer attendance problems.

Ideally, summer camp’s nature should be equally accessible to all children regardless of race and socioeconomic status. Yet, the camp experience in America has traditionally been reserved for wealthy, white families. Due to expensive operations, summer camps frequently have high costs of participation. Furthermore, camp is often a family tradition, which due to generations of systemic discrimination, often equates to a white family tradition.

Through intentional planning, hiring, and fundraising, Alex and Angelica aim to break down the barriers for young Black campers. To begin, the camp’s programming will be catered to the desires of Black youth. As Angelica highlights, “some of them might not be great swimmers, so really emphasize swim lessons into our program.” They also plan to make camp accessible to low income youth. Through grants and donations, Alex and Angelica’s upcoming camping trip in March will be free for Black middle schoolers.

“You can’t be what you can’t see”

–Alex Young, Young Legacies cofounder

Young Legacies field trip to Muir Woods National Monument. Angelica and Alex Young

Additionally, Alex hopes to “bring the people who bring the culture.” By hiring Black staff to be the counselors, “Black thoughts and Black minds really guide the program to create an inclusive space.” Hopefully, Black counselors will act as positive role models and inspire campers to explore the natural world. Stressing the importance of positive representations, Alex highlights “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

Summer camps, however, only highlight one aspect of nature access disparities, which arise from a long history of systemic racism. To begin, public lands in the United States are rooted in the violent dispossession of land and resources from Indigenous people. Redlining, forced migration, and economic segregation further segregated and excluded people of color from public lands.

These legacies of exclusion are evident in the under representation of people of color in the visitation of public parks. In 2020, 75% of families of color with children lived in nature deprived places, compared to less than 40% of white families. Furthermore, Black and Latino families were the most naturally deprived of any race or ethnicity. Additionally, those with access to natural areas are often subject to discrimination and harassment. In 2020, for instance, a white woman threatened Christian Cooper with violence and arrest while he was bird watching in Central Park.

“Camp is an opportunity to escape and really take time for yourself”

–Angelica Young, Young Legacies cofounder

The summer camp experience is especially important for Black youth as it provides a safe, controlled environment to explore nature. Angelica reflects, “We talk a lot about escapism in the Black community and how there’s a lot that’s going on. You know my sister Alex works at a school where some of the kids’ friend was just shot and killed. There’s a lot going on in our kids worlds…Camp is an opportunity to escape and really take time for yourself.”

Young Legacies is working to provide Black youth with tools and resources that are traditionally not available due to lack of financial accessibility, institutional racism, discrimination, and/or educational disparities. At Young Legacies, “We see ourselves as a puzzle piece in the larger, broader sense of really expanding what Black people from the Black community have access to.”

But Alex and Angelica Young cannot do it alone. They need allies to listen to the needs and desires of Black youth–and donate in support of the Young Legacies summer camp.

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Previously a lowly physics major, Celia Tandon is now entering the exciting field of journalism as an earth systems MA coterm. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, they are interested in exploring the intersections of abolition and climate justice. Outside of the classroom, Celia enjoys drawing, gardening, and scrolling through twitter.