Climate change doesn’t affect everyone equally. And the people closest to the problem are often closest to the solution.

Across the country, Black leaders are driving bold, community-rooted approaches to climate resilience and challenging the systems that have long placed environmental burdens on the communities least responsible for creating them. They are scientists and organizers, policy shapers and coalition builders. They are redefining what climate leadership looks like by centering equity, health and justice in every strategy they advance.

In honor of Black History Month, we spotlight five leaders whose work sits at the powerful intersection of climate action and racial equity and ask for reflections on their life and careers. Their efforts span clean energy access, flood resilience, public health and beyond, and they share a common conviction: that the communities most impacted by environmental harm must lead the way forward.

Melanie Allen, CEO, Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice

Melanie Allen is a leader in climate justice philanthropy with deep experience facilitating community-based solutions that put those most affected by policy at the center of decision-making and development processes. With 20 years in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, she has expertise in community development issues across many sectors, including conservation, affordable housing and workforce development.

Before co-founding Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice in 2019, Melanie launched the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation’s Energy Equity portfolio and managed the organization’s relationships and grantmaking in South Carolina. She is co-chair of Grantmakers for Southern Progress and currently serves on the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.

What is one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

My career makes sense looking back, but living it in real time, it didn’t feel particularly linear. The advice I’d give my younger self is: every step on your journey matters, even when the connections aren’t obvious yet. Those throughlines will reveal themselves over time, especially when you zoom out and look through a systems lens.

Like many people in this movement, I came to environmental justice through the lens of public health. That path taught me the importance of investing deeply in relationships with people working on similar challenges from different vantage points. When you listen closely to how others are approaching the same high-level problem from a different angle, you begin to understand just how much we need all those forms of expertise to create lasting change.

A core belief that has guided me throughout my career is that people are experts in their own lives and that lived experience is just as valuable as academic or professional experience in addressing deeply entrenched challenges.

At Hive Fund, that belief has pushed us toward participatory practices and supporting common sense solutions that are often overlooked because of who is seen as an expert in defining both problems and solutions. It has also shaped how I listen and how I lead — often in ways that feel different in a philanthropic sector and role where the usual approaches don’t always make space for that kind of listening.

There’s often this pressure to know what’s next and to climb a ladder. But my leadership journey has looked less like a ladder and more like a web. I have a job that I didn’t even know existed when I was a young person. I didn’t really think about philanthropy until our work began winning tangible victories and people started inviting us into new rooms. What I learned from that was the power of learning by doing — of staying focused on the mandate in front of you, the partners alongside you, and what you can build together in the present moment. Long-term goals matter, but showing up fully where you are is often what makes the work possible in the first place.

Rev. Dr. Ambrose F. Carroll, Founder, Green The Church

Rev. Dr. Ambrose F. Carroll, one of the nation’s premiere Practical Theologians, combines faith, ecology, and social justice to inspire transformative action. He is the founder of Green the Church, which is a national organization that exists to be a repository and a catalyst for sustainable practices at the intersection of the environmental movement and the Black church worldwide.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Dr. Carroll’s commitment to service extends beyond the pulpit. Dr. Carroll serves on the National Environmental Justice Action Committee for the United States Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Steering Committee for California Interfaith Power and Light.

As you look back on your journey, what is one accomplishment you are most proud of?

When I look back on my life, the accomplishment I am most proud of is having the courage to shift my calling from serving as a local pastor to stepping into the work of a full-time, para-church nonprofit leader.

Becoming the executive director of Green The Church marked a profound departure from my former role as a senior pastor with a full-time preaching and speaking schedule. Ministry is deeply embedded in my family’s DNA—my father, uncles, cousins, and three of my siblings are all pastors. In many ways, pastoral leadership was the family vocation, supported by traditions and national relationships that run rich and deep.

Yet I am grateful that I ultimately found the courage to follow a different, though deeply aligned, path. Stepping into the nonprofit world allowed me to broaden the reach of my ministry beyond a single congregation and to engage systemic challenges at the intersection of faith, justice, and sustainability.

Today, through our partnership with Dr. Anthony Kinslow and Gemini Energy Solutions, and the creation of our joint venture, Green The Church Renewable Energy Development, we are equipping churches to become engines of resilience, economic empowerment, and environmental stewardship. This work positions local pastors, congregations, and communities not only to survive, but to thrive well into the 21st century, and that is a legacy I am deeply proud of.

Ali Dirul, Founder and CEO, Ryter Cooperative Industries

Ali Dirul is the founder and CEO of Ryter Cooperative Industries, a Detroit-based clean energy development firm dedicated to advancing community-owned solar and resilient energy infrastructure for mission-driven institutions. Since its founding more than 11 years ago, Ryter Cooperative Industries has built a track record of creating inclusive, sustainable, and economically empowering solutions for communities that have historically been disinvested. Dirul also serves as the executive director of the Lumens Foundation, a sustainability education workforce development non-profit platform established to help advance a diverse clean energy workforce nationwide.

With an educational background in mechanical engineering, alternative energy systems and leadership, Dirul is recognized for his ability to navigate the technical, political, and social complexities of clean energy initiatives, leveraging partnerships to deliver solutions that strengthen communities and serve as replicable models for sustainable developments. His work focuses on ensuring that the clean energy transition is equitable and community-centered, not only renewable energy solutions but also ownership opportunities, workforce development pathways, and long-term economic benefits.

Under his leadership, Ryter Cooperative Industries has developed programs that empower residents, local businesses, and city agencies, fostering collaboration and trust while addressing both technical and social challenges in energy and climate projects.

Ryter Cooperative Industries as a result has been honored by Green America’s People and Planet Award 2017 for RCI’s effective neighborhood clean energy program deployments, and again in 2022 with Business of the Year Award by the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council and the State of Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer for the company’s leadership and measurable impact in advancing sustainable and equitable energy solutions in the State of Michigan.

Dirul has led work with the City of Detroit’s Office of Sustainability to build Michigan’s first Microgrid Climate Resilience Hub with the New Lenox Center located at A.B. Ford, held learning sessions with State Representatives in Lansing into how to effectively and appropriately deploy clean energy assets into underserved communities, and now serves as a key member on current Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield’s Infrastructure, Sustainability & Climate Change Committee, furthering contributions to Detroit’s equitable and resilient growth.

Who was one person who influenced you during your career?

One of the most influential people in my life was my godmother, Mama Aba Ifeoma, a bee keeper, community educator and former DTE Energy technical manager who believed in me at a very early age and helped shape how I understand both technology and possibility. When I was very young before Junior High School, she taught me how to build my first computer system. It was an eye-opening experience that was not simply about assembling parts together, but rather understanding how systems work, how to analyze them, and how to build them in ways that are forward thinking. She instilled in me a mindset of systematic and critical thinking that continues to guide how I approach projects, challenges and opportunities today.

She helped me see technology as something to be understood and ultimately taught with ease. That perspective shaped the path I chose and continues to influence my current work. A defining way that influence shows up in my work is through a commitment to community empowerment. In my role as director and lead trainer of the Lumens Foundation, I have focused on expanding access to clean energy education, workforce development, and hands-on training opportunities, personally providing training and exposure to hundreds of students and emerging professionals as they prepare to enter the growing climate and energy economy.

Mama Aba’s early belief in my potential continues to shape my leadership and reinforces my commitment to building systems that create opportunity for others. Whether through clean energy development, community partnerships, workforce training and mentorship, I remain focused on ensuring that communities are not only served by the energy transition but equipped to participate in and lead it, as I was prepared by Mama Aba with that first computer build so many decades ago. This has proven to me that the impact of providing education and mentorship to eager and interested minds is lasting.

Darryl Haddock, Environmental Education Director, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance

Darryl Haddock is currently the environmental education director for West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA), where he coordinates special projects after moving from his focus on WAWA’s educational programs, community outreach, and citizen science research activities. Before moving to become WAWA’s special projects director, he completed serving as the Urban Waters Federal Partnership Proctor Creek Ambassador.

In 2022, he joined the Board of Directors of the Environmental Education Alliance as a member of the Higher Education Committee, bringing higher education institutions together to incorporate environmental education, professional learning, and service learning that overcome barriers to teaching and working outdoors. He is now chair of the Environmental Education Alliance Environmental Stewardship and Community Engagement Opportunities EOC Committee, coordinating conferences, events and workshops and exploring equitable outcomes for the organization.

Notably, he suggested the concept for Georgia State University’s CSAW program. This learning ecosystem brings together community partners, post-baccalaureates, master’s students and faculty. The project goal is to assess and address critical needs; for and with communities, in place-based Earth systems research.

As the education director, he led WAWA in a critical partnership for local Higher Education Institutions and community-based organizations, known as the Collaboratory. Georgia Tech’s Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain, Emory University, Georgia State University Spelman, and Morehouse Colleges are a few with whom he has participated as a guest lecturer and program facilitator. He also works on shared interests to develop infrastructure for sustained and cross-institutional collaboration between universities/colleges and community-based organizations to advance community science initiatives.

Another role he enjoys is organizer and instructor for The Atlanta Watershed Learning Network, bringing together people from Atlanta’s most impacted watersheds. Led by ECO-Action and West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, community members are gaining knowledge about the causes of stormwater flooding, the health and economic impacts flooding caused in their communities, green infrastructure as an achievable solution, and how they can be empowered to advocate for other sustainable solutions to these problems.

What is one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

I would tell myself: trust the journey. I had so much insecurity back in the day. I knew I wanted to be a scientist. But my academics didn’t back up my love for science. Also I really didn’t want to be the guy in the lab. I love field work, but even when I worked for firms, I saw I probably wouldn’t write the report or sign off on the conclusions. I looked around a lot for validation in a job or title.

I just needed to wait to find my niche, which is community science and street science, and find my place in a community-based organization. It was a long walk, but without that, I wouldn’t have gained the lived experiences that have become my body of work.

Peggy Shepard, Co-Founder and Executive Director, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, has a long history of organizing and engaging Northern Manhattan residents in community-based planning and campaigns to address environmental protection and environmental health policy locally and nationally. She has successfully combined grassroots organizing, environmental advocacy and environmental health community-based participatory research to become a national leader in advancing environmental policy and the perspective of environmental justice in urban communities — to ensure that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment extends to all.

She served as the first co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and was the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She currently serves as chair of the New York City Environmental Justice Advisory Board as well as on the Executive Committee of the National Black Environmental Justice Network and the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Her work has received broad recognition: the Jane Jacobs Medal from the Rockefeller Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 10th Annual Heinz Award For the Environment, the William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership, the Knight of the National Order of Merit from the French Republic, the Damu Smith Power of One Award, the Spirit of John Brown Freedom Award, the Dean’s Distinguished Service Award from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and Honorary Doctorates from Smith College and Lawrence University.

As you look back on your journey, what is one accomplishment you are most proud of?

It’s hard to single out one accomplishment. This is the 35th anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, which was held in October 1991 in Washington, DC. And that was transformative in that it was the catalyst for so many of us in the environmental justice movement. We returned from that with a renewed sense of purpose and an unwavering commitment to building what WE ACT for Environmental Justice has become today, one of the leading voices in environmental justice – with a long track record of success at the city, state and federal levels.

But one accomplishment I am especially proud of was our decision to establish a Federal Policy Office in Washington, DC. In 2012, we became the first and only environmental justice organization based outside DC to have a permanent presence there.

We are a community-based organization, serving Harlem and other communities in Northern Manhattan, but we knew that we needed to have full-time staff on the ground in Washington because what happens there has a significant impact on our community. Our Federal Policy office works with lawmakers, agencies and other organizations to advance federal environmental justice policies and programs for the 1,100 members in our organization as well as the Northern Manhattan community at large.

The DC office has also been instrumental in the growth and success of the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum, a national coalition of 40 environmental justice organizations across 22 states founded four years prior. Leveraging the relationships we have built with the legislative and executive branches of the federal government over the years, WE ACT – as the facilitators of this coalition – has been able to help other environmental justice organizations advocate on behalf of the communities they serve as well as amplify the voices of the movement at large.

During the Biden administration, in which I served as the as the first co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, we helped ensure that environmental justice was not only a focus of federal agencies and their programs but also started to receive the long-overdue funding it deserves. And with the current administration’s assault on the environment, and environmental justice in particular, we have become one of the leading voices of the resistance, standing up not only for environmental justice issues but the basic principles of democracy as well.

In hindsight, it seems like establishing our Federal Policy Office was an easy decision. But at the time, in that funding climate, it was a big risk for us. But it is a risk I’m proud to have taken, as it has clearly paid off in ways we could never have imagined.