Welcome to this newly launched web site for the Black to the Future Nature Alliance. This new non-profit venture is being forged from the hard work of volunteers; all people of color who are deeply committed to telling/sharing and uplifting stories and experiences about the environment as it relates to the Black diaspora and beyond. We hope you will explore what is here, get on our mailing list, make contacts, offer input, and as we add events, announcements, and activities, that you will become a part of this new and vast community we hope to help mentor and facilitate. Here, the connective and soulful power of nature, and the environment is coupled with vital power and activism that is built into our Black odyssey. In particular, stay tuned for information about upcoming “Master Classes” we will be offering this coming Spring featuring activists, artists and change agents.
The 5th Taking Nature Black Conference took place March 8-11 2023. Themed “Belonging: Engaged and Empowered,” this year’s event featured two virtual days & one in-person conference day at the Silver Spring Civic Center in downtown Silver Spring, MD.
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Meet Our Planning Committee
Caroline Brewer
Author and literacy consultant at www.carolinebrewerbooks.com,
Program director for BTFNA, and former chairwoman of Nature Forward's Taking Nature Black Conference. Brewer has said, "As a child, outdoors was freedom. Intoxicating freedom. It was birth and rebirth,resonating somatically, like a song.
Fred Tutman
Environmental Advocate, College Professor
When outdoors, I feel centered, as though the earth and ancestral home, a place of endless wonders. There are so many places where I feel symbiosis, partnership. The earth and the unbuilt world, are where I usually feel I have real belonging.
Karen A Wilson-Ama’Echefu,Phd.
Cultural Historian, Singer, Storyteller
I’m a New York City kid, a Harlem child from what some call “the concrete jungle”. I never knew there was such a thing as an urban or community forest. The closest I came to a forest was the one, baby tree that was planted outside our apartment building!
Xavier Brown
Xavier Brown is a lifelong Washingtonian. He earned his Bachelors from North Carolina A&T, and a Masters from the University of Vermont, Xavier is a alumni of the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leaders Program, a cofounder/worker-owner SouthEats cooperative, a Member of Black Dirt Farm Collective & Founder of Soilful.
Joyce Woodson
I was picked up out of Southeast DC and placed in the country setting on farmland with horses and other animals that were not in cages. Teen Haven Christian camp not only introduced me to the wonders and pleasures of Love and Its creation but also to the comfort, healing properties of the outdoors.
Queen S Shabazz
United Parents Against Lead and the Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative
When I’m outside, being touched by the sun, I feel free, free to be me and to not care about time, or to-do lists.
Elaine Tutman
Environmental Health Inspector, retired.
As a child I played in the woods, carved names on a birch tree on the day President Roosevelt died (the tree is still there). When I walk this land breathing clean air and soaking up birdsong and country sounds it inspires me to be a good steward of the farm that has been in my family since 1925.
Princess Mutasa
(she/her/hers, UCSC 2017) is a public policy intern in the city of Durham, NC and a network training coordinator for the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina. She is passionate about community-based work in the environmental field
Pamela Roach
I am a brand strategist, and business and marketing executive with global experience leading, managing and training all phases of the marketing process. Pam is committed to sharing, following and nurturing the collective wisdom of the Black environmental community
Request a speaker!
Drop us a line to request or recommend a speaker on an environmental topic at an upcoming event. Your input helps shape the future of the Black to the Future Nature Alliance!
Are you a Black environmental professional, educator, or advocate?
We are compiling a roster of Black environmental professionals, educators, and advocates to expand our work at the Black to the Future Nature Alliance. We encourage anybody interested to request a listing in our forthcoming roster, or contact us with any questions.
This is a wonderful networking opportunity as well. Email us with a brief bio or a link to your professional information
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