VCU news

Ornithologist and Clemson University wildlife ecology professor J. Drew Lanham will visit Virginia Commonwealth University in September to deliver VCU Libraries’ 2023 Social Justice Lecture. His topic will be “Coloring the Conservation Conversation.” 

Lanham, Ph.D., writes and speaks about the implicit and overt racism that people of color often face when engaging with their natural surroundings. He bridges the arts and sciences to create a new model of conservation and care for nature that welcomes diverse perspectives.

At VCU, Lanham will discuss the full embrace of his African American heritage and his deep kinship to nature and adoration of birds. Through his varied roles – ornithologist, college professor, poet, author and activist – Lanham examines how conservation must be a rigorous science and evocative art, inviting diversity and race to play active roles in celebrating and preserving our natural world.

The Social Justice Lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. in VCU’s James Branch Cabell Library Lecture Hall. It also can be watched remotely via Zoom. 

Lanham emerged as a national figure after Orion, a nature and culture magazine, published his “Nine Rules for the Black Birdwatcher.” The 2013 essay, later adapted for video, is a satirical take on some of the challenges he faced as a birder, including veiled threats and encounters with armed passers-by while in the field.

Lanham also suggests ways to bring social justice principles into conservation work. His “Nine Rules for the Woke Birdwatcher,” published in Orion in 2020, not only calls out overt racism but recommends adopting abolitionist Harriet Tubman (who used an owl call to identify herself) rather than naturalist John James Audubon as a bird-loving inspiration, and renaming birds that are named after slave owners. 

Lanham received his B.A. (1988), M.S. (1990) and Ph.D. (1997) from Clemson, where he is the Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher in the Forestry and Environmental Conservation Department. He also was honored as a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. 

Lanham's research and teaching focus on the impact of forest management on birds and other wildlife. The blend of his ecological knowledge and his perspective as a Black man living in the South influences his work as a storyteller, poet and advocate for birdwatching, outdoor recreation, and environmental conservation and stewardship.

In his 2017 book, “The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature,” Lanham traces his passion for birds and nature to his family’s small farm in rural South Carolina. His lyrical descriptions of childhood explorations around the farm are a hallmark of his conservation ethos: the head-to-heart connection. Lanham says the combination of scientific facts and emotional connections to nature can more effectively encourage conservation measures.

A critical component of the head-to-heart connection is understanding people’s historical and cultural associations with land, a point he illustrates through the painful legacy of slavery attached to his family’s farm. Like much of the land in the South, before his family owned, shaped and nurtured the farm, slavers forced Lanham’s ancestors to work it. Jim Crow segregation is a frequent topic of his grandmother’s stories of life on the farm, which his family lost after his father’s death – a common experience in a region where policies and practices frequently deprived African American families of their land.

Lanham continues to investigate how African Americans’ historical relationship to land influences their present perceptions of nature, and its appreciation and stewardship. This work is part of a larger effort to broaden, diversify and sustain engagement with the natural world