Black History Month is a time to remember and reflect on Black heritage. This hour features powerful conversations from past episodes on how we can confront the past to move toward a better future. Guests include historian and preservationist Brent Leggs, community organizer Colette Pichon Battle, and computer scientist Joy Buolamwini.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Colette Pichon Battle, a visionary leader, discusses her transition from lawyer to environmental activist post-Hurricane Katrina. She highlights the deep connection between land and heritage, societal inequities in disaster relief, equitable recovery, climate migration trauma, and embracing differences with love and freedom. Through Taproot Earth, she leads initiatives in disaster recovery, global migration, economic development, and energy democracy.

There is an ecological transformation unfolding in the places we love and come from. On a front edge of this reality which will affect us all, Colette Pichon Battle is a singular model of brilliance and graciousness of mind and spirit and action. And to be with her is to open to the way the stories we tell have blunted us to the courage we’re called to, and the joy we must nurture, as life force and fuel for the work ahead. As a young woman, she left her home state of Louisiana and land to which her family belonged for generations, to go to college and become a powerful lawyer in Washington, D.C. Then in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina made, as she has said, "a crack in the universe," she returned home to a whole new life and calling. Colette Pichon Battle is a vivid embodiment of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world — led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all.Colette Pichon Battle is Co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth, a global organization which has emerged from the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy that she founded and led in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She and her colleagues are influencing manifold aspects of our ecological present, including equitable disaster recovery and global migration, community economic development and energy democracy.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Colette Pichon Battle — On Knowing What We're Called To." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.

We need water to live. But with rising seas and so many lacking clean water — water is in crisis and so are we. This hour, TED speakers explore ideas around restoring our relationship with water. Guests on the show include legal scholar Kelsey Leonard, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, and community organizer Colette Pichon Battle.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Original broadcast date: August 7, 2020. We need water to live. But with rising seas and so many lacking clean water — water is in crisis and so are we. This hour, TED speakers explore ideas around restoring our relationship with water. Guests on the show include legal scholar Kelsey Leonard, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, and community organizer Colette Pichon Battle.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy