A First: Black Woman Heads Major Environment Organization

For the first time in its history Greenpeace USA is led by a Black woman, and the issues the new leader plans on tackling go far beyond climate as she links healthcare and voting rights to racial justice.

“The science shows Black and brown communities are placed in regions specifically where climate destruction is the worst,” says Ebony Twilley Martin, Greenpeace’s first Black executive director. “A (recent) Yale study showed that Black and brown people are more aligned on the climate crisis than white people are.”

The organization wishes the United States to put an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and reinvest the $15 billion allocated to the polluting venture in clean and renewable energy to prevent climate disasters and save lives. Twilley Martin intends to also focus on forming alliances with allies and communities of color and organizations that are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)-led, such as the Movement for Black Lives, to better protect their rights and find solutions that will lead to a just and equitable future.