Art History Major Honored by the University
The Berkeley Wall of Fame now includes an art historian! Rue Mapp (HA ’09) joins Joan Didion, Gregory Peck, Steve Wozniak, Alice Waters, and Jay DeFeo among those singled out by the University for exceptional achievement. Inspired by Professors Lovell and McBride’s “The American Forest, Its Ecology, History, and Representation,” a course about the power of images to change behavior and affect public policy, Rue — scarcely out of college — founded Outdoor Afro. This organization is dedicated to creating “interest communities, events, and partnerships that support diverse participation in the Great Outdoors,” reconnecting “African-Americans with natural spaces and one another through recreational activities such as camping, hiking, biking, birding, fishing, gardening, [and] skiing.” Twice invited to the White House for discussions ranging from land use policy to childhood obesity, Rue now is “exploring the possible intersections between the Wilderness Act and the Civil Rights Act. What did it mean fifty years ago when they were each signed, and why should it matter today — or in the future?”
