Note: This content was originally formatted as a series of social media posts.
Dr. Robert Bullard is often called the “Father of Environmental Justice” due to his work in 1990 which found that 100% of city-operated landfills were located in communities of color and causing disproportionate environmental harms. His academic and policy efforts have furthered our understanding of environmental racism and how to see climate justice as racial justice. Here is a video honoring Dr. Bullard for being awarded the 2020 Champion of the Earth Lifetime Achievement by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright is a policy analyst and one of the policy architects of the Green New Deal. She helped ensure environmental justice was a priority of the Green New Deal—something that was very personal to her, having grown up on the South Side of Chicago in close proximity to air- and water-polluting industries. Currently, she serves as the Director of Climate Policy at the Roosevelt Institute, where she leads research at the intersection of climate policy, public investment, and racial equity. Here is a Marie Claire article discussing Gunn-Wright’s work on the Green New Deal.
Jerome Foster II was a member of President Biden’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council—the youngest White House advisor in U.S. history. Foster is a leading voice for marginalized and working-class communities in spaces pushing for social, economic, and environmental justice. Here is an article by Time Magazine that highlights some of Foster’s greatest contributions to climate justice in the US.
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder of The Shirley Chisholm Legacy Project, which is dedicated to being “a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with resources to traverse the path from vision to strategy to action plan to implementation to transformation”. Patterson has also worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate, and activist working on women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV/AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. Here is an article by Time Magazine discussing Patterson’s unique approach to her climate work.
Every Friday in February 2025, we showcased a few Black climate justice advocates and shared resources to learn more about each of them. These four posts obviously don’t even come close to scratching the surface of all the amazing Black climate justice heroes we have working toward a better world. Black History Month ends today, but honoring people who have had amazing impacts on the world continues forever! Thanks for continuing to learn with us.