Sierra Club’s Gerry James to Speak at Yale Public History Institute on Defending Public History and Protecting National Parks

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. - On June 17, Gerry Seavo James, deputy director of Sierra Club's Outdoors for All Campaign, will participate in the Yale Public History Institute's "Our Composite Nation: Honoring Public History in 2026" symposium hosted by Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and Shepherd University.

The institute brings together historians, public history practitioners, advocates, and cultural institutions to discuss the future of public history and strategies for protecting public lands, cultural resources, and historical truth-telling. Public programming will take place June 14-16 and is free and open to the public.

James will serve as a co- facilitator during the institute's closing workshop day titled "Organizing in the Face of Historical Erasure" and will present a case study on Sierra Club's "Truth Belongs in Our Parks" campaign. His presentation will highlight how the Sierra Club is responding to attempts to erase history from national parks and other public lands parks through digital organizing, communications, legislative advocacy, public records requests, grassroots advocacy, and outings programs.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the institute's June 14-16 events, which include conversations featuring leaders from the Smithsonian Institution, National Parks Conservation Association, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, and other organizations.

WHAT:

• Yale Public History Institute: Our Composite Nation: Honoring Public History in 2026: free public symposium from June 14-16. Invitation only programming will take place on June 17.
  • Sunday, June 14: Public History: Contemporary Challenges
  • Monday, June 15: Revisiting the "Imperiled Promise" National Park Service Report Public History Lives! Institutional Resilience in Challenging Times
  • Tuesday, June 16: Heroes and Villains: Exploring the Duality of Our National Figures
    American Conservation - Panel Discussion
  • Wednesday, June 17 (Private): Organizing in the Face of Historical Erasure
    Sierra Club-Truth Belongs in Our Parks
    Turning Insight into Action
    Building the Toolkit + Collective Plan

WHO:

• Gerry James, Deputy Director, Sierra Club Outdoors for All Campaign
• David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University; Director, Gilder Lehrman Center
• Cynthia Copeland, Co-Director, Yale Public History Institute
• Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
• Edward Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus of the University of Richmond
• Alan Spears, Senior Director of Cultural Resources at the National Parks Conservation Association
• Robert Sutton, National Park Service Chief Historian
• Sarah Weicksel, Executive Director, American Historical Association
• Public history practitioners, advocates, scholars, and cultural institution leaders

WHEN:

• Wednesday, June 14 - 17, 2026

WHERE:

• Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education Auditorium
  Shepherd University
  213 N. King Street
  Shepherdstown, WV 25443

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit https://www.sierraclub.org.