FOREST SERVICE CENTENNIAL: 100 YEARS OF DE FACTO SEGREGATION
In July the Forest Service will celebrate it's centennial anniversary. After 100 years as an agency, African Americans are still severely under represented in that agency. One significant aspect of Forest Service history is how it has used bull corn advertisements and other forms of public relations to develop a public opinion of the Forest Service that is purely false, and only acceptable to the naïve and adolescent. Such techniques have contributed immensely to maintaining the historical legacy of discrimination against African Americans --- de facto segregation in the Forest Service.
For information regarding the Forest Service history, contact your local Forest Service library. A recommended reading is Herbert Kaufman's The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior, ISBN 0-8018-0328-4, published in the 1960's. That study identifies the "Prussian" perspective of the Forest Service and identifies the characteristics that carry on and perpetuates discrimination. Many other studies conducted by research groups, universities, colleges, and civic organizations reveal the true culture of the Forest Service "family".
A relevant study is "The 'Forest Ranger' in Popular Fiction: 1910-2000", by Jeffrey M. Lalande. One of the reasons the public is not accurately aware of the real Forest Service is due to the media portraying the Forest Service in books and movies designed to falsely impress and enlighten the public. The Lalande study pointed out that in the early years of the Forest Service the public was not pleased with the Forest Service. Thus, the Forest Service leadership:
[M]ounted a concerted public education campaign. Speeches, commentaries in national magazines, letters to regional newspaper editors, and publication of pro-conservation pamphlets all aimed to legitimize the new Forest Service in the eyes of the American public.
That particular action, to a significant degree, inspired novelists and movie producers to produce fiction about the Forest Service. Additionally, the Forest Service efforts to "enlighten" the public in some ways relate to the programs managed by Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment in Nazi Germany. Such a massive public affairs effort has essentially misled the public into having a favorable, but false image of the Forest Service.
The Forest Service propaganda strategy continues today. As of April, 2005 the Forest Service had 297 GS-1035 Public Affairs Officers, enough to have two of them on almost all forests in the United States. In addition, the Forest Service has 451 GS-1001 General Information employees, for a total of 748 employees. By currently having 748 employees related to public information, the Forest Service program of feeding bull cone to the public is still active and alive.
Many of the novels and movies that depicted the Forest Service proliferated racism and the legacy of discrimination. In example, the Lalande study pointed out that:
By far the most overtly racist of the Ranger novels is Hunter S. Moles’s Ranger District Number Five, published in 1923, at the height of traditional white America’s anxiety over perceived "race suicide" and the consequent need for racially and religiously based "One-hundred-percent Americanism." On northern New Mexico’s remote and rough Ranger District Number Five, the benighted Hispanic population is made up of ignorant, lazy, "brown" peons who are cowed by a greedy, tyrannical, and Forest Service-hating patron, Ortega. Ranger Casper, an Army veteran recently returned from fighting "dirty little Filipinos," opines that "it is a shame that these dirty little greasers should occupy this paradise. This is what I call a white man’s country."(p.24). Later in the story, Ranger Hardy expresses satisfaction that the locals are now beginning to "have a wholesome fear a’ what the flag represents. They’re just naturally afraid o’ a white man anyway. It’s the nature o’ the breed. They’re an inferior race. It’s the same the world over— I’ve seen ‘em all,—black, yellow, brown, red, any old color; they’re all afraid o’ a white man." (p.77).
The study cites many novels and movies that depict the Forest Service, including Smoke Jumpers and World War two themes. The study was focused on the fiction that was produced back in those days. Inasmuch as there were no novels or movies that recognized the Triple Nickels 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, an African Americans unit that parachuted and fought forest fires for the Forest Service during that period, the Triple Nickels, were never mentioned. Hopefully some day the accomplishments and merits of the Triple Nickles will be appropriately published --- not internally within the Forest Service, but on national television networks, Public Broadcasting System, the BBC, etc.
The Lalande study focused on the early years of the Forest Service. However, another study, "Racial, gender, and professional diversity in the Forest Service from 1983 to 1992" by Paul Mohai, Ph.D, Professor of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor focused on the years of 1983 to 1992. The Mohai study pointed out that:
[w]hile the percentage of Native Americans in the agency is higher than that in the overall workforce, African Americans are significantly underrepresented in the agency (United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1992c). For the most part, today people of color seem to be concentrated in the lowest-level positions in the Forest Service. For example, people of color are highly overrepresented in the Administration and Clerical categories, where they make up 18.2% and 23.2% of the employees, respectively. In all other job categories they are underrepresented; the next-highest is Social Science (13.6%). The very small change in average grade seems to confirm the fact that most of the people of color hired during the past decade moved into low-level jobs.
Current Forest Service Workforce Data shows gross under representation of African Americans.
In April of 2003 the Lead Agent of the Spencer class action presented the issue of under representation and the need for a special taskforce to Mr. Mark Rey, the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources, Mr. Dale Bosworth, the Chief Administrator of the Forest Service. Also present at that meeting was Mr. Tom Mills, Deputy Chief, and Ms. Kathleen Gause, National Director of Civil Rights. The issue was also submitted in writing to the Forest Service leadership. The Forest Service June 20, 2003 response letter dead panned the issue. The Forest Service response to the issue was to simply give us a copy of their Fiscal Year 2003 Affirmative Employment Program Update and FY 2002 Accomplishment Report, and stated:
We believe this report addresses the issues you have raised by fully describing the Agency's recruitment strategies and results as well as providing workforce representation data for all equal employment opportunity groups. At this time, Forest Service management has decided not to appoint a task force to study this issue further. Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.
Subsequently, Mr. Mills, Deputy Chief, sent a letter on the subject of Status of and Tools to Increase Workforce Diversity, along with enclosures, to all employees letting them know that:
While we made great strides in diversifying our workforce in the 1970’s and 1980’s, we have made little progress since the early 1990’s.
It is good when a high level official speaks up. However, no progress regarding African American representation has been accomplished. Thus, the Forest Service centennial celebration will essentially be celebrating de facto segregation. It is also interesting that shortly after the Deputy Chief told the truth, he suddenly retired from the Forest Service, supposedly at his own choice. Other officials have done good things: last year, Mr. Jack Blackwell, a Regional Forester, broke all records by selecting two African Americans to be Forest Supervisors in the California Region. He also suddenly retired from the Forest Service, supposedly at his own choice.
Our sparse representation, especially west of the Pecos river, is directly connected to the legacy of federal and state legislation and restrictive covenants that prevented African American movement to the western states and benefiting from public lands managed by the Forest Service.
Current Forest Service officials were not born when the historical and discriminatory legislation was enacted. However, remedying that discriminatory legacy is a federal responsibility and, the Forest Service, as a federal agency, shares that responsibility and must be held accountable. If agency officials do not honestly and sincerely strive to correct the under representation situation, then the agency officials become participants in and supporters of the historical legacy of federal and state discriminatory legislation.
Email suggestions, comments, criticism, and questions to spencer@xusda.com. NOTE: Due to a glitch in the old computer used for these reports, some email addresses were lost. If you know any African Americans who are no longer receiving or not receiving these reports, please ask them to send their email address to spencer@xusda.com. Thanks.
Allen P. Spencer
Lead Agent, USDA African American Spencer Class Complaints
Email: spencer@xusda.com
Class Complaint Web Site: http://www.xusda.com