My name is Pamela Slaughter, and I'm the founder of People of Color Outdoors, aka PDX People of Color Outdoors. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and have always loved nature and the outdoors. When I was a child, I spent as much time as possible exploring city parks and nearby woods. I was always thrilled to observe the wild bunnies, garter snakes and the many birds that always seemed to be present.

My mother loved nature, and she loved exploring natural areas outside of Portland. My five siblings and I had lots of wonderful walks and picnics in beautiful settings, thanks to my mother.

Years later, divorced and with children of my own, it was important to me to instill a love of nature in my own children. We did a lot of exploring in natural areas on weekends. Sometimes I would give the children a dart and let them throw it at a map of the county. We'd visit where ever the dart hit. We felt like daring explorers and loved our adventures.

One day, we were out exploring a trail. It was a beautiful summer day. The day was warm with a light breeze that carried the sweet smell of blackberries ripening in the sun. My eight year old son was leading the way on the trail, with my seven year old daughter and I just behind him. He walked around a curve and then stopped in his tracks. Coming towards us, with shaved heads, suspenders, steel toed boots, confederate flag patches and hateful scowls, was a group of racist skinheads.

I told my children to walk with me a few feet off the path to let them pass without contact, but they followed us off the path and surrounded us. I couldn't tell you what they said, because my mind was completely occupied with how to keep my children safe. Other hikers came along a moment later, and the racists moved on. It wasn't that simple for my children and I to move on, though.

We no longer felt safe to explore public trails the way we had before. We stuck to group activities and did a lot of volunteer work after that, even we were usually the only Black family present. Our presence was often simply tolerated rather than welcomed. Still, it felt safer to be with a group, so that's what we did until my children grew up.

Years later as a grandmother and great aunt, I could see that my grandson, two grandnephews (the Tripod) and I were experiencing racism when in natural spaces. It was frustrating to me and I didn't want the Tripod to become traumatized by the racism they were starting to experience when spending time in nature. I wanted to find a better way for us to experience the outdoors.

One day, I googled “Black people hiking together,” and discovered Outdoor Afro, founded by Rue Mapp. I wrote her and soon began Outdoor Afro Portland. The training retreat was held in Virginia, and it was wonderful. I learned how to lead events safely while creating community, along with Black leaders representing 33 other states. 

I returned home energized and excited to share Oregon’s beauty. My monthly events were popular. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work. After nearly three years, I stepped down as the group leader. One of my members, Rikeem Sholes, repeatedly asked me to start another group. He finally offered to host all the events until I was ready to return. 

As I imagined a new organization, I thought about the many people of color who were not Black who had joined or wanted to join Outdoor Afro. There was a clear need for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in Oregon to have a safe way to experience nature, and to experience a welcoming, inclusive community. 

I took Rikeem up on his offer and started People of Color Hike (now People of Color Outdoors) in July 2017 as a Meetup group. The group attracted people of all colors, ages, nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds. What they all have in common is a desire to enjoy nature and feel safe, with other people of color. Gentrification destroyed Portland's former Black community, and Portland has no true BIPOC community. People of Color Outdoors serves as a caring community where true friendships have blossomed between members of all ages and backgrounds.

People of Color Outdoors is now a nonprofit. We’ve hosted over 350 events since 2017. We enjoy hiking, trail running, biking, camping, canoeing, fishing, bird watching and rock climbing. We’ve had poetry walks, experienced forest bathing, mindfulness walks, vision board parties, art parties, pumpkin decorating, game days, gatherings, holiday parties and potlucks. 

We have a wonderful nature education program for K-5 students called the People of Color Outdoors Guardians. The Guardians are housed in Columbia Cottage at Columbia Park, and is offered during summer, winter and spring breaks. 

We have cohorts of trained BIPOC volunteers that give back by leading POCO outings. Our cohorts include fishing leaders (trained by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife), kayak leaders (trained by the Oregon Boating Foundation), mindfulness walk leaders (trained by Dr. Tia Ho). We have a goal of training cohorts of teen hike leaders, bird watching leaders and leaders to offer beginning/gentle yoga that is disability/elder friendly. 

A big goal for People of Color Outdoors is to purchase land and build a retreat center/nature preserve that will be a healing space to our members community, wildlife, fish and water, and the land itself as we restore it. Our retreat center/nature preserve will also benefit the local community. 

In the meantime, we will continue to offer our nature education to the community - the POCO Guardians, and we'll continue hosting frequent outings. Our outings are joyous! We have a caring community of over 5,000 members between Facebook and Meetup, where we can all literally exhale, and just be. We meet new friends. Our children do as well. We encourage our elders to participate. It's a time to find play dates, hike buddies and people to walk dogs with. To exchange information about fun places to experience, and get questions answered. To experience the strengthening boost that belonging to a welcoming community offers. I feel privileged to do the work that I'm doing, and I'm grateful every day for this community.