Current events have weighed so heavy on our hearts…Emotions sadness, anger, and sorrow. We have found ourselves on the verge of tears many days as we watch the protests. The names of innocent victims just doesn’t seems to end. Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor and the latest killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, has brought back so many memories of the places we’ve taken our boys.
But then, we were only looking at black and white pictures, hearing old news casts or even getting lectures from historians who lived and marched during those times. Now it’s our time….Six years ago we bought our 1st RV… we decided to travel with our three young boys because we made a commitment to homeschool. With RV travel we wanted to bring their education to life. It’s one thing to see a picture in a book or a video, but it’s another thing entirely to go physically visit, touch what you have studied and to experience it first hand. We strongly felt We needed to teach them black history.
We are trying to empower our boys to know they are not just the descendants of slaves. We want them to know the truth about Black Wall Street, the Jim Crow era and the Civil rights era. We have been able to show them what the Green book was and visited Underground Railroad safe houses.
We have taken them to African American museums all up the a East coast. We have taken then to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with 10,000 others on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I credit my wife, who has the burning desire to teach her boys the true history and experiences of being black in America. She worries like only a Black Mother can. We have talked so many times about how we need to continue to train them so they will be prepared for the harsh treatment given to black men in this country. Teach them how to deal with unwarranted police stops, being followed while shopping or just something as simple as a white woman clutching her purse tighter as you pass her by. It hasn’t been easy for them. Often when they see the photos and hear the sounds they would get scared. That’s when I as their Father, would take them under my protective arms and comfort them.
They would often say, “Dad, why did White people hate blacks so much? What did we do?” Talk about speechless moments. We did and do our best to teach them, not to hate but to be aware. With the current protests, we now have another opportunity to teach them about hate and racism.
This time, I pray it will be different. This time, I have hope that real change will come. Change is painful and takes time. We have to band together and capture this moment to change all of our futures. I’m so thankful for every single man, woman or child that is peacefully protesting the racist injustices that exist in this country. Together we all can make it better for all of us. A dear friend of mine in his motivational speeches likes to end it with this saying..”reach one, teach one”. I pray this post is reaching many more than one.. God bless and let’s all keep fighting for true freedom and equality for all Americans. #Blacklivesmatter
Keith and Tia Sims – Proud Black Parents of Soulful RV Family
Thank you so much for sharing your life with us! Very inspirational. My husband and I are currently looking to RV upstate NY, we are a family of 6. We are having a difficult time finding a rental, we believe it is because of the color of our skin. Do you have any pointers on how to go about renting an RV for our family vacation??
RV travel is booming and we all know why (COVID-19)! Try some of the peer to peer rental sites like Outdoorsy.org. It will allow you to rent locally to you. Make sure whoever you rent from, that they give you a full detailed walkthrough on the RV..
I saw your writeup in the Newmar site and it mentioned this great family site of yours. As a mixed race American family (I am Indian and my wife is of Irish heritage), it is nice to hear of your stories to promote more diversity in the RV community. But more importantly, we need to address America’s systemic racism problem involving our African American countrymen. Personally, I thought that my brother and I growing up as the only minorities in the entire school in PA would qualify me to have an opinion on race. However, each and every day, as I become more aware of systemic problems in our country, I am embarrassed of my previous views and misconceptions. The only way to address this is for me to continue to educate myself and work to speak out from a base of knowledge.
To this end, I would like to ask your opinion on a dilemma that I face. I’m sure traveling the country with your son’s likely exposed you to historical and revered places in our country that were intertwined with slavery either in their creation or their operation. My wife and I were intending to visit Mammoth Caves in Kentucky next month. As I did my research on these caves, I’ve learned of the many slaves that were used as explorers and/or tour guides in Mammoths past. Some of them were forcibly removed from their families for these tasks. While there are numerous credits given to these men, I am struggling with my visit. Would I be honoring their contributions by visiting and learning of their sacrifices or will I be gaining pleasure from seeing a place that was created by their forced service? It would be helpful for me and your other readers to get your thoughts as well as have an open conversation about this among our RV community.
Thank you!
Mano
Hey Mano,
Sorry for the delayed response we had to deal with an out of state death in our family..
Your question is a great one and one we faced ourselves before we traveled to Mammoth Cave last year. WE definitely decided to go. We did not sugarcoat how blacks Slaves were used as forced labor to explore and work the cave. There was a nice display in the Vistor’s center telling the history of how slaves had a very large role in the cave’s history. You are going to find that the history we were taught in school has been “white washed” and the contributions of other races diminished or whipped out completely. Even as we toured the cave the park rangers, talk about the European explores that were created with the discovery of Mammoth Cave. As we sat and listened, how the discovered deep within the caves, artifacts from Native Americans (proof that others had found the cave before Europeans), we made note to our boys. And asked them the question, “How does one discover something that other people have explored before?”. As parents of black or minority children, it’s up to us to go out and seek the true history and teach it to our kids. As African Americans, we are teaching our boys that their descendants were much more than slaves. They are learning how much if not all of this land was stolen from the Native Indian Americans, and how treaties were not honored. There is so much to see and do and learn.