Park chief leads on race. Could he be next to lead NPS?

摘要

When he was a child, Cassius Cash said, his parents hammered home a lesson that always stuck with him: Stay away from the woods. "I was born in '68 in Memphis, Tenn., and the woods to my mother and father was not considered to be a safe place for people of color in the Deep South," he said in an interview. Cash, now the superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, says many Black children still believe the woods are scary - a place where people get "whacked." He wants to change that perception because, he said, the National Park Service desperately needs to attract more nonwhite visitors to remain relevant for a new generation of Americans. That won't be easy, but Cash could be in prime position to give it a try.