Rue Mapp just wanted to have fun outdoors. When she couldn’t find a peer group to play with, she created one! Her natural spirit of leadership gave birth to Outdoor Afro, “a group designed to connect Black people with nature and change the face of leadership in the outdoors.” Leadership is what excites Mapp most about her organization.
Born as a blog in Oakland, California in 2009, Mapp’s seed of inspiration has grown into a dynamic nationwide outdoor leadership network that is about to make history by sending the first all-Black expedition team from the U.S. (support staff, porters, and climbers) to ascend Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The team is comprised of extra-ordinary Americans who, like Mapp, simply decided to do something.