See, Listen, Read: Black History Month
Here are our recommendations for what you should read, listen to, and watch this Black History Month. Have a Black History-themed recommendation that’s not featured below? We’d love to hear about them! Email Jade at jade@bark-out.org to share.
Read
“A Black Woman Who Tried To Survive In The Dark, White Forest,” by Melody Mobley
This article by Melody Mobley, who in 1977 became the first black person hired by the U.S. Forest Service, and in 1979, became the first black woman to graduate from the University of Washington with a degree in forest management, explores some of the extra challenges people of color—especially women—face in forestry, and outdoor spaces more broadly.
Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States by Carl Zimring
As the history laid out in Clean and White demonstrates, black Americans have been sounding the alarm on environmental injustices long before these issues mattered to the traditional (mostly white) environmental movement. This is a tough, but absolutely necessary, overview of the environmental inequities that have long plagued people of color, and still do to this day.
Listen
“No Justice without Climate Justice,” Climate One podcast episode featuring Justin Pearson
You may know Justin Pearson as a vocal advocate for gun reform who rose to prominence as a member of “The Tennessee Three.” But you may not know that before he joined the TN legislature, his activism centered on climate and environmental justice. Pearson’s unique perspective on the intersections between social and environmental justice is needed now more than ever.
The Joy Report podcast hosted by Arielle King
Who couldn’t use some joy right now? The Joy Report is an important corrective to the doomerism of climate anxiety and the deficit-based framework that so often characterizes discussions of communities of color. By focusing on positive developments in the environmental and climate space, host Arielle King reminds us that we already have the tools to combat the climate crisis. And there are communities and places that are doing just that.
See
Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, dir. by Alexander Glustrom
This 2019 documentary follows Stacey Ryan, one of the last remaining residents of a historically black community in Louisiana, as he fights an influx of petrochemical plants into his town. Winner of the 2019 Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights.
“Black, Black History Month”
This pop-up museum in The Horizon Enterprise Building in Old Town includes three floors of exhibits featuring history, photography, paintings, film and music that celebrate Black life and history in Portland. 433 NW 4TH Avenue, Portland, OR, 97209. Open Feb. 1-28.