Thomas RaShad Easley grew up in an apartment in an urban neighborhood in Birmingham, Ala. But he learned to love nature, in part because his grandparents cultivated a lush garden amid the concrete and blacktop.He was also an Eagle Scout, and Scouting got him out of the city and into the woods, where he enjoyed spending time at Tannehill State Park.“Yes, we would go camping, and I’m glad that we did it. Because at first, I didn’t want to do it,” Easley recalled. “And then, when we got out there, it was so much fun. You know, me and the guys. And the other good thing about our scout troop was we were a diverse scout troop. So we had black, white, as well as brown young men in our troop. So it was almost like a social experiment – Troop 49 in Birmingham, Alabama.”