SE4:EP9 - Henri Rivers: Diversity in the Mountains

Since the day he found an old pair of skis in his family’s hotel attic, Henri Rivers has found a special joy in skiing. It didn’t matter to him that he was the only black skier on his high school ski team. He just loved to ski. Today, as president of the National Brotherhood of Skiers (NBS), Rivers is making a difference helping the ski industry better understand how to embrace black skiers with programs like Ski Utah’s Discover Winter.

The first thing that strikes you when you meet Rivers is not that he is black, but the importance of family and his passion for skiing that comes through quickly in a conversation. Before they married, he told fiancé Karen that he would be skiing six months a year. Without hesitation, she learned to ski and is always at his side. And it became the same for their triplets, who have long been a part of their family ski trips to the mountains!

Since he found that old pair of wooden skis with leather thongs when he was 10, skiing has been a part of his life. He long ago discovered NBS and passionately engaged in the organization’s mission to put a black skier onto the U.S. Ski Team. It was pretty natural for the outgoing Rivers to take on the presidency of NBS in early March, 2020. What was not natural was the pandemic that swept the world a few weeks later, or the Black Lives Matter uprising that came that May.

Within NBS, he held the organization together through the pandemic. Outside of NBS, he became one of the most sought-out leaders in the sport as ski industry executives from every corner reached out to him for help navigating the diversity waters.

This month he will preside over the 50th anniversary of the National Brotherhood of Skiers when it comes together for Black Summit.

But what he’s most proud of is the undying support NBS has provided towards its mission of advancing Black athletes in the sport. He speaks proudly of athletes of the past, and with eagerness when he talks about today’s Team NBS. And he’s set lofty fundraising goals for the organization to support the cause.

“We're always hoping that people can see the value of what we do and donate to our cause,” said Rivers. “So once we decided or once they decided to come up with that mission. That's when we got a different drive. You know, we went from just partying and having fun on the hill to gathering funds to support young athletes of color so that we could promote them and get them to training, develop them into elite racers.”

This is a conversation that blends the passion for skiing we all share, along with a special message of diversity. Take a listen to this episode of Last Chair featuring Henri Rivers: Bringing Diversity to the Mountain. <<LINK TO PODCAST>>

How did you discover skiing yourself?

I grew up in Jamaica, Queens, in New York. Around ten years old, my parents moved us up to upstate New York – a little town called Big Indian in the Catskills, about six miles from Belleayre Mountain and 10 miles from Phoenicia Ski Center. By Thanksgiving, you had three feet of snow outside. Either you stayed inside from Thanksgiving to March or you found a way to make all that snow out there your friend. I found a pair of skis in the attic of my parents' hotel – skis, boots and poles. I tried them on and they all fit.

But how did you learn?

I had no clue what I was doing. I figured out how to lace up the boots and strap in. They were cable bindings. I would put them on and I would just push off and go straight down the hill until there was an obstacle. And whenever a tree popped up, I would just tip over and fall. 

As a skier in the Catskills back then, you probably were the only person of color on the mountain. How was that?

That was part of life. That's part of the American society. In most areas, if you're outside of an urban community, you're usually one of the only persons of color. Now you ratchet that up a little bit more when you're in a mountain community. You're definitely one of the only people of color. I was fortunate there was a guy a couple of years ahead of me in high school. He was such a phenomenal skier. And I'm telling you as a kid, my eyes would be wide open. You ask how it felt. It really didn't have any different feeling because that was society at that time. That was the community you were in. So just because we're skiing now, it's still the same community. If you were the only person of color, you will look at it a little differently, of course. You develop a thick skin because just living life was hard enough. Now you're into the ski world, into their environment. And it was the same thing. So you dealt with it the same way.

This year we’re celebrating 50 years of the National Brotherhood of Skiers. It’s quite an amazing history.

You know, that is something that I think about often going back to 1973, 1972. These two gentlemen (Art Clay and Ben Finley) decided to get together, form a bond and bring as many Black ski clubs as they could across the United States and gather them and get them to ski together. They wanted to ski together for several reasons. Camaraderie and definitely security. Getting together with a group of people that enjoy the same thing you do, and that look the same as you do, tends to give you a little bit higher safety factor. And then you wouldn't have to worry about some of the rhetoric or some of the things that were said in your direction because they wouldn't be said when you were there in numbers. So as a result of coming together and enjoying the sport and finding that many Black skiers were proficient skiers, it wasn't like a bunch of people skiing down, bumbling and falling. And, you know, they were quite proficient. And after the ski community saw that, I think they accepted it more and more.

Henri, what role did NBS play in the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020?

Everything stopped. May 25th, George Floyd gets murdered in the street, and we all see this. My phone rang off the hook every single day from the ski industry. We had large resorts, large manufacturers write letters in support of Black Lives Matter. So they were looking to the National Brotherhood of Skiers for guidance on how should they move forward in supporting human equality and to try to stop the racist system that exists.

Henri, one of the things I’ve learned from you is that sometimes racism isn’t very overt. Can you give an example.

The first thing that comes to me is this. You have a black skier or a group of black skiers that will come to a ski area. White skiers will come to them and, you know, be a little bit too overly helpful. ‘Oh, let me show you how to put on your boots. Oh, your boot goes here into these little black things called bindings.’ And, don't get me wrong, if you've never been on skis, you do need some guidance. But just because they're just coming up onto the hill doesn't mean they've never skied before. So you get people that want to help them or direct them. And sometimes it's a little bit too much. And that can be thought of as microaggressions that are unnecessary.

You’ve been a big supporter of Ski Utah’s Discover Winter program. What makes it unique?

They've done their homework and the program is going well. I was fortunate that Raelene Davis reached out and invited this out to watch the program and to be involved with one of the weekends. What they're doing is hitting a different demographic. The other winter outreach programs, they're l...