Ep 3: Environmental Justice & Racism with Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru

Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is an environmental justice advocate, a recent graduate from the University of Connecticut, and the first Black person in history to receive the Rhodes, Truman, and Udall scholarships. In this episode, Wawa discusses the need to disrupt the status quo within the environmental movement, calling for the movement to center the experience and expertise of frontline people of color — especially black and brown people who have been historically left out. 52 Hertz host Petrice Jones and Wawa talk food insecurity, environmental literacy, and how the erasure of BIPOC voices in the environmental community perpetuates racism and undermines the very goals environmentalists are trying to achieve.