Guest edited by Tanai Drayton
It was 1919 and the Monterey National Forest in the Big Sur area had just been combined with the larger national forest to its south. The union of these two national forests created the Santa Barbara National Forest, which would later be renamed Los Padres National Forest some 17 years later. These lands had only been designated as forest preserves two decades earlier. The national forest system was still in its infancy.
Throughout this early period of national forest management, there were disputes about whether some of the land designated for protection was agriculturally viable. Some of the more pastorally minded locals sought approval from the agency to farm small pieces of land that had been set aside as part of the national forest. Though most of the land was not suitable for agricultural use, forest rangers still allowed a practice known as ‘trial farming.’ Under a special use permit, one would be allowed to take a small area and attempt to prove it was good for farming. Most of the time, the permit holder would abandon the land after realizing that it was in fact less than ideal for their agricultural pursuits.
A specific instance of trial farming in the Monterey Ranger District during the 1920s and ‘30s reveals much about early forest management—which predominantly involved white men—and how one person in particular, Mary L.C. Norman, persevered in the midst of racial discrimination.
According to Forest Service historian William Brown’s History of the Los Padres National Forest(1945), Mary was a Black woman hailing from Virginia City, Nevada where she had been a locally famous cook during her younger years. In 1919 she applied for an agricultural special use permit to live and work on a small piece of land along Nacimiento Creek in the Big Sur area.
Of all the trial farming stories that likely came out of the national forest during this period, the Forest Service only referenced Mary’s story in this remote stretch of the Big Sur region. Her relationship with the Forest Service over the ensuing two decades was only described in one accessible historical document—and the story is told only from the side of the agency. Unfortunately, Brown dedicated two pages of his historical overview of the national forest to what ultimately amounts as a diatribe against Mary Norman, one filled with racial slurs, misogyny, and belittlement.
Anyone who reads the Forest Service’s 1945 document today will undoubtedly notice Brown’s casual use of the N-word when referring to Mary. In fact, the author not only makes it a point to mention that the word was part of a moniker used by locals to refer to Mary, but he actually uses this derogatory moniker himself when describing her. The word and the terrible moniker, in a standard Forest Service document about the history of the National Forest System, serves as proof that the racist and discriminatory practices prevalent in Mary’s case were common and intentional.
Brown goes on to paint Mary using other racist and misogynist language:
“Mary imported her Mexican paramour, and almost immediately trouble developed. The ramshackle fences built by her ‘steady’ Mexican friend and other dark-hued male companions who camped with her from time to time, became a menace to livestock.”
That the agency even made note of Mary’s companions in this matter is indicative of the white supremacy and misogyny that had taken root in the early Forest Service. Brown even recounted that the district ranger overseeing the Big Sur part of the national forest wrote to his supervisor just one year into Mary’s permit stating that she was “living in violation of the laws of matrimony.”
When Brown describes why the agency eventually canceled her permit, he mentions first that it was because of her private romantic life. Regardless of whether any of that was true, Forest Service officials at the time clearly did not approve—of course, it was not their job to be moral judges of a permit holder’s private life. And almost as an afterthought, Brown says that Mary was also in arrears in her payment of special use fees. When reading this in the Forest Service’s historical record, it is difficult not to think that perhaps the agency canceled her permit under the official pretext of late fee payments but were, in reality, just wanting to evict a woman of color because her way of life did not sit well with those in charge. The practice of using fees and other debt mechanisms to evict Black people from the land has long been common in the United States.
During some of the agency’s attempts to evict her from the area, she wrote to various government officials—including the president—indicating that she had discovered gold and silver on the property. Fortunately, the Forest Service decided against physically removing Mary from the piece of land she had leased. Instead, Mary and some chickens she raised remained on the local landscape for twenty more years.
She eventually left the little alcove in the national forest in 1940, though it is unclear where she went after this. The Forest Service was quick to erase any memory of Mary on the land, burning down the small home she had built.
We tell this story for two reasons: 1) To celebrate Mary Norman and her perseverance, a Black woman who dedicated herself to the land—a woman who demanded fair treatment and insisted on staying on the land she had legally leased. 2) To highlight an ugly piece of history in the management of the Los Padres National Forest. Over the last century, the Forest Service has awarded countless special use permits to people for various activities. Ranchers have been allowed to graze intensively, wildcatters allowed to drill haphazardly, miners allowed to dig up entire areas, and businessmen allowed to build shooting ranges across national forest land—all these endeavors led mostly by white men. And some of these activities were permitted despite their damage to cultural sites and ecosystems.
We have to wonder: was anyone else treated as poorly as Mary Norman during the permitting process? Brown neglected to mention a single other special use permit case in his historical overview of the Los Padres that covered nearly 50 years of national forest management. That itself is telling.
Yet, consider Mary Norman’s journey: She moved from Nevada to California, went through the special use permit application process with the Forest Service, and then managed a small piece of land on the Big Sur coast for two decades despite being constantly badgered by a government agency and her neighbors. There is almost certainly much more to this story left untold by the Forest Service. However, we can celebrate Mary’s courage by ensuring that her story is not lost to time.
We must also continue to confront the racism that has been embedded in our institutions since they began. We are pleased to see the Biden administration taking important steps to combat systemic racism in federal agencies. On day one of his term, President Biden issued an executive order instructing all federal agencies to root out racism from their programs and institutions while rescinding Trump era policies that restricted diversity training requirements.
The work is far from over, but it is as crucial now as it ever has been. We will continue to push for real transformation in agencies like the Forest Service. To do anything less would be a disservice to Mary Norman and all those who have had similar experiences over the decades.
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