Team of Black Climbers Conquers Mount Everest

Of the 6,000 people who have made it to the summit of Mount Everest, fewer than 10 have been Black — until this year. ​​

That’s when mountaineer Phil Henderson, 59, organized an all-Black team of climbers to scale the highest peak in the world. ​Henderson was the right person for the job. He had three decades of climbing experience on mountains like Denali, Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. But during those years, there were few Black climbers to learn from or look up to. “I’m like, ‘Wow, if I can reach this level I wonder what people would do if they had mentorship,’” he says. ​​

So Henderson created the Full Circle Everest Expedition made up of business owners, teachers and professional climbers who were Black. Henderson led the effort to climb Everest from base camp to make sure the rest of the team had the support needed to make it to the top. ​​

On May 12, the team summited Mount Everest. Mother Nature “doesn’t care where you come from, what you look like, what color you are,” Henderson says. “We have to depend on one another. That’s life.”

For more on Henderson’s story, watch the video above.