America Outdoors presenter Baratunde Thurston is a “writer, activist, and occasionally comic” who will debut the title program on PBS on July 5, 2022, at 9/8c. In the episode, Baratunde Thurston will travel throughout the nation to study how landscapes impact how Americans live, work, and interact with the outdoors. Thurston is also an Emmy-nominated host who has worked for The Onion, counseled the Obama White House, and written the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black. He also got the Social Impact Award at the 2021 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards 2020 for co-creating and hosting How To Citizen alongside Baratunde.
Baratunde Thurston, presenter of All About America Outdoors
Baratunde Rafiq Thurston was born in Washington; his father died while he was a youngster, and his mother supported the family by working as the Comptroller of the Currency. He also has an elder sister. After finishing his education at Sidwell Friends School, he earned a degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1999. He began his career in 1999 as an Associate at The Management Network Group, where he worked for four years before joining Unravel Media as a Contract Producer and Advisor.
He also co-founded Jack and Jill Politics, a black political blog whose coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention was preserved by the Library of Congress. He even worked as The Onion’s digital director before starting the comedy/technology business Cultivated Wit. According to his biography, Thurston also serves on the boards of BUILD.org and the Brooklyn Public Library.
According to MSNBC’s Brian Williams, the Brooklyn native’s statements were lauded as “one of the best TED lectures of all time” in 2019. Thurston was also awarded by the ACLU of Michigan for “changing the political and social landscape one chuckle at a time.” Other honors include a Bill Hicks Award nomination for Thought Provoking Comedy, inclusion in The Root’s list of the 100 most important African Americans, and inclusion in Fast Company’s list of the 100 Most Creative People In Business. His extraordinary ability to integrate themes of culture, race, politics, and technology to explain the nation’s present and future is widely recognized. Thurstone’s viewpoint and significant work prompted the former US President to label the latter as someone he “needs to know.”
America Outdoors by Baratunde Thurston
Part2 Pictures produces the six-episode new series America Outdoors for Twin Cities PBS (TPT). According to PBS, viewers of America Outdoors will:
“Follow bestselling author and podcaster Baratunde Thurston as he travels the country’s different landscapes to examine how they impact the way people work, play, and engage with the outdoors.” Discover a greater knowledge of our passionate and complicated connection with the natural environment, from coal workers turning beekeepers in Appalachia to Black surfers catching waves in L.A.”
Watch Episode 1 of America Outdoors, titled Death Valley: Life Blooms, on July 5 to tour the hottest area on Earth, witness an ultra-marathoner running in the summer heat, and learn many more intriguing facts about the region.