There are lives whose stories demand to be known. Carroll B. Williams Jr. was a pioneering forestry engineer, academic researcher, and entomologist — the first African American to be hired by the U.S. Forest Service — whose legacy within the American forest landscape is immeasurable. Mars Verrone, their grandson and the film’s director, dedicates this portrait to him.
The time of the forest renders human time insignificant. Nature takes time to come into being, and it endures. People pass through nature’s time without even noticing its details, and often without caring about its preservation, so essential to life.
“Buckskin” was the nickname of Carroll Burns Williams Jr., the first African American to earn a PhD in forestry and entomology and to join the United States Forest Service. His life was marked by research into the forest: its preservation, and the importance of managing its resources in the fight against poverty and for the survival of Indigenous peoples. “It’s time we learned from each other,” he would say. “Buckskin” was also a man who challenged the logic of his time, when a Black man could scarcely dream of an academic career. He lived as he dreamed, and in this documentary, at the end of his life, he reflects on what he did and how he did it, using the time of the forest to think about his own—so much shorter, so much closer to its end.
The serenity of his thoughts softens the nearness of his departure. He says he has his hand on the doorknob of the exit; that he does not want to go, because he loves the life he has. But there is no anger, no protest, only a peaceful sense of loss for a good life. Echoing the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, he is urged not to go gently into that good night, but it is already too late: the forest that welcomed him so well will perpetuate his destiny. (Margarida Moz)
