Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

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To the Editor:

I’ve noticed recently the conversation about why African-Americans aren’t visiting national parks (“Why Are Our Parks So White?,” Sunday Review, July 12). I fear that we are complicating the diversity question by focusing on the wrong kind of national parks experience.

Two-thirds of our National Parks System comprises historical and cultural sites. Of that number, 28 sites are specifically designated to commemorate some aspect of the African-American experience.

Visiting a National Historic Site like Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, under the purview of the National Park Service, is just as worthwhile a national park experience as a visit to a more well-known landscape park like Yosemite.

By virtue of the sites the agency manages and the stories it interprets and preserves, the National Park Service is one of the largest stewards of African-American history in the country. Getting to know your parks is a lot like coming home again.

ALAN SPEARS

Cultural Resources Director

National Parks Conservation Assn.

Washington

To the Editor:

Glenn Nelson writes that “the national parks attracted a record 292.8 million visitors in 2014, but a vast majority were white and aging.” He complains that the National Park Service “doesn’t even know how many minorities visit the parks these days because it doesn’t routinely track such information.”

Access to many national parklands is widely dispersed and unmonitored, especially in metropolitan areas, making it impossible to accurately count their visitors. Even where visitors may be counted, would we really want park employees to racially classify them, either by questioning them or guessing about their ethnicity?

What purpose would be served by this intrusiveness? Would it justify the likely offense caused?

As one who spent his career working in and for the parks, I hope that the National Park Service continues to welcome all visitors without concern for their race or ethnicity.

BARRY MACKINTOSH

Lincoln, Calif.

The writer was a park and bureau historian with the National Park Service, 1965-2000.

Note from KBJ: Progressives won't stop until every occupation, profession, academic discipline, organization, church, association, and club is a microcosm of society. It's been said that a puritan is a person who takes offense at the mere thought that someone, somewhere, is having fun. A progressive is a person who takes offense at the mere thought that somewhere, somehow, white people (and especially white men) are having fun.

Can't Buy a Thrill (1972). If this doesn't take you back, nothing will. I was 15 years old when this song was released.

Here are scenes from today's stage of the Tour de France. The stage winner, Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium, averaged 26.08 miles per hour for 123.3 miles.

Rick Perry just lost the votes of people who oppose illegal immigration and want something done about it. Does he not realize that Donald Trump speaks for tens of millions of us, and that we do not appreciate big-business Republicans such as Jeb Bush and Rick Perry trashing Trump for it?

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Here is a terrific story about the Race Across America. Be sure to read the sidebar.