WORDS BY JASMINE HARDY
photographs by akasha rabut
Chuck Morse called late last month during a historic snowstorm. His home in New Orleans was blanketed in nearly a foot of snow—levels not seen by the Gulf city since the late 19th century. Morse’s house lost power, so he was jump-starting his car to charge his phone before it died. Extreme weather often slams the city, but rarely in the form of snow.
“We go from hurricanes to this,” he said. “It’s crazy.”
Morse is the executive director of the nonprofit ThriveNOLA, a group that advances systems for racial equity, climate resiliency, and economic opportunity in New Orleans. The organization’s work is rooted in community. ThriveNOLA’s headquarters is located a block away from a former brownfield in the city’s Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black neighborhood bound by water on three sides. The community still hasn’t fully recovered from the debilitating damage it suffered during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, yet the storms won’t stop coming. Extreme weather patterns, boosted by climate change, continue to besiege the city.
Frontline climate justice work from ThriveNOLA and other organizations is more important than ever, but shifting political winds now present unprecedented challenges. President Donald Trump immediately cracked down on DEI initiatives and references; and, as experts predicted, environmental justice now sits neatly in the crosshairs. In the first few hours of his presidency, Trump issued an executive order halting $3 billion in federal grants meant for environmental justice organizations. In the following weeks, the White House scrubbed its website of climate justice, shuttered the Department of Justice’s environmental justice office, and announced plans to do the same at the Environmental Protection Agency. Vulnerable communities are now in limbo—but the organizations vouching for them won’t go down without a fight.
“We’re operating from a new rubric now,” said Morse. “We can’t be sharecropping, so to speak. We need to do our own land.”
Trump’s early executive actions have rolled back environmental justice initiatives stretching back 30 years across administrations, but they are mostly directed toward Biden-era policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Justice40 Initiative, which outlined ambitious climate plans focused on rectifying climate disparities. Before those progressive federal changes, environmental justice groups—especially those that are Black-led—struggled with financial and material support; in 2020, not a single climate justice nonprofit made the list of the top 100 funded organizations. Only three made it in the top 200.
“When it comes to environmental justice, it always happens in our communities so we need people who look like us to tell us what’s going on.”
Thanks to policies from the last administration, environmental justice groups have since been able to use federal dollars to prepare their communities for the effects of climate change. ThriveNOLA received a $500,000 federal grant last year, which they planned to use to support their youth environmental education program—a six-week summer camp for 50 middle- and high-schoolers to learn about native biodiversity, flood resilience, and waste literacy and management. Campers even develop skills to make their own homes less flood-prone.
“I think that our Black youth are the most vulnerable, and they need to learn young,” Morse said. “We have so many other things we’re focused on in life, socially and economically, that we don’t focus on this. I want people to see how important this is to those other things and how to become good stewards.”
Funding constraints now threaten that mission. “We have three [Environmental Protection Agency] grants that have been paused,” Morse said. “It’s almost a triple whammy for us: we’ve got President Trump in office, our Republican governor who didn’t renew our SNAP program, and then our corporate funding is now being impacted by DEI [rollbacks].”
Morse said he’s already had to make difficult decisions, laying off essential staff members whose salaries were tied to federal funding. While the environmental justice rollbacks didn’t come as a complete surprise to him, he didn’t expect pauses on signed grants.
Environmental groups across the country face similar challenges. In Flint, Michigan, the climate justice nonprofit Young, Gifted, and Green has yet to receive any funding from an IRA grant they were selected for in 2024. The organization requested $20 million to establish a new environmental justice center in Tennessee that would support energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and clean water infrastructure. With the freezes, it’s unclear when—or if—the money will come through. Still, they’re not letting it stymie their progress.
“We had plans with that money—it definitely would have allowed us to move at a larger capacity,” said Dionna Brown, YGG national youth director.
YGG already plans to seek non-federal funding. “Yes, it’s going to be harder, but there’s a way around it,” Brown said. The Flint native said she’s used to being let down by the government. This April will mark 11 years of Flint’s ongoing water crisis. Brown remembers being in high school and having to wash her face and brush her teeth with water bottles. Toxic air and water is standard practice for predominantly Black neighborhoods like hers. That’s why Brown sees Black-led environmental justice organizations like YGG as essential to the larger movement.
“Whether it’s the quality of food, water, or simply the ability to survive, people on frontlines will feel it first.”
“It’s so much more important and deeper than people will see it as,” she said. “Saving the animals and plants is great, but this also affects people—and the ones it affects most are Black, Brown, and low-income people. When it comes to environmental justice, it always happens in our communities so we need people who look like us to tell us what’s going on.”
Even organizations that aren’t federally funded will feel the impact of Trump’s crusade against “wokeness”. HBCU Green Fund in Atlanta has been working on creating community farms in areas saddled by food apartheid. The organization is funded through donor contributions; but Managing Director Illai Kenney recognizes that foundations look to federal actions as a guide.
“It will change how much and if they will give—it will impact everyone’s decision-making,” Kenney said. “If the government is not aligned with standard information, like whether climate change is real, how do you have an opportunity to do research on a deeper level to validate the changes and see if [solutions] are working or not?”
Kenney said the consequences will be life-altering—potentially even deadly—for Black communities: “Whether it’s the quality of food, water, or simply the ability to survive, people on frontlines will feel it first.”
Kenney is returning to old-school organizing tactics to mitigate the fallout: Boycotts, buying locally, and using non-digital communication—strategies employed during Black liberation movements of the past. Other environmental justice organizations across the United States might opt for different resistance strategies. But what they have in common are the bonds they’ve forged in their communities. After all, the environmental justice movement was born from Black resistance. It won’t fall without a fight.
“We are who we need to save our planet,” said Brown. “[The government] clearly isn’t going to do it, so we have to do it.”
Correction,
February 21, 2025 12:05 pm
ET
A quote from Dionna Brown was amended to protect her employer's privacy.
Join our membership community. Support our work, receive a complimentary subscription to Atmos Magazine, and more.
Black-led Climate Groups Won’t Yield to Trump’s Crusade on Wokeness
