Inspired by a Twitter bookclub started by Jessica J. Lee (#AlliesInTheLandscape) I started a small reading club on climate justice, to reflect on how race shapes our outdoors experiences.
This month, we’re reading:
- Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney
- And this short excerpt from Ibram X. Kendi from his book How To Be Anti-Racist.
When starting the bookclub, I couldn’t find many of the books written by Black authors about nature available to buy. These books seem much more inaccessible compared to books about outdoors written by white authors.
I have been reading articles and bookmarking many names, lists and websites. So I’ve consolidated all my notes and reading lists below. Maybe some of you would also find this helpful. This is my list to come back to, buy, read and reflect more on climate justice pieces written by Black, Indigenous, or other people of Colour. Questions I’m thinking about with my current readings;
- When was my first time to read a book about nature/landscape by a Black author? I haven’t read many so why might that be?
- Which voices shaped my ideas of wonder in nature? What power did they hold & why?
- What are my experiences of land & belonging in Bulgaria? What am I learning about other people’s experiences?
- In what ways do expectations of white nature writers differ from those of Black, Indigenous, & other people of colour? How are their stories framed differently?
BOOKS
- The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Priviledge and Environmental Protection by Dorceta Taylor
- The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoors by James Edward Mills
- Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage by Dianne D. Glave
- Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility by Dorceta Taylor
- Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney
- Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy
- The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World by Lauren Savoy & Alison Deming
- The Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
- Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry by Camille T. Dungy
- The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
- Birding for Everyone: Encouraging People of Color to Become Birdwatchers by John C. Robinson
- The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How Government Response to Disasters Endangers African-American Communities by Robert D. Bullard
- Diary of An Environmentalist by Norris McDonald
- Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman
- Two Trees Don’t Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
- All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson
ARTICLES
- We Don’t Have to Halt Climate Action Fight Racism by Mary Annaïse Heglar
- People of Colour Experience Climate Grief More Deeply Than White People by Nylah Burton
- It’s Time for Environmental Studies to Own Up to Erasing Black People by Wanjiku Gatheru
- Is it wrong to be hopeful about climate change? by Diego Arguedas Ortiz
- Perhaps the World Ends Here by Julian Brave
- Black Women are Leaders in the Climate Movement by Heather McTeer Toney
- If You Care About the Planet, You Must Dismantle White Supremacy by Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
- The Case of Climate Rage by Amy Westervelt
- United in Change by Meera Subramanian
- Think This Pandemic is Bad? We Have Another Crisis Coming by Rhiana Gunn-Wright
- What Listening Means in a Time of Climate by Tara Houska on the Voices of Indigenous Elders
- 15 Years After Katrina, a Fight Against ‘the Jim Crow of Climate Change’ Rages on in the Gulf Coast by Drew Costley
- I am a Black Climate Expert. Racism Derails Our Efforts to Save the Planet by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
- Why I Quit Being a Climate Activist by Karin Louise Hermes
- Faster Than We Thought: What Stories Will Survive Climate Change? by Omar El Akkad on Our Obligation to Preserve Memories
- We Don’t Farm Because it’s Trendy; We Farm as Resistance, for Healing and Sovereignty by Ashley Gripper
- Climate Justice is Racial Justice, Racial Justice is Climate Justice by Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr.
Lists
- Green Voices of Color Twitter list, curated by Mary Annaïse Heglar — a good place to find writings by people of colour
- List of readings on the links between racism and the environment by Somini Sengupta
- Read the histories of 29 Black Environmentalists — a list compiled by San Francisco’s Department of the Environment
- Finding my Climate-Conscious Tribe: a list of Black nature lovers and writers compiled by Kim-Marie Walker
Platforms
- The Willowherb Review — provides a digital platform to celebrate and bolster nature writing by emerging and established writers of colour
- Zakiya Mecca’s blog — a writer in residence for the Forestry Commission
- Birdgirl — a blog by 18 year old Mya-Rose Craig who is fighting hard to redress the lack of visible minority ethnic (VME) writers
This list will keep growing.
I will be writing more about my readings and reflections as we progress with our bookclub discussions. Let me know what you’re reflecting, thinking and actioning.
