10 BIPOC Environmental Authors
Updated: Jul 27, 2020
As I have done personal research on books relating to environmental racism I noticed that I had trouble finding books about the environment and race that were written by people of color. Which is ironic to me. Why are books about environmental racism easier to find written by white authors? Is this because there are more of them or just because that is what is marketed in the media? To spread awareness about this issue, here is a list of 10 authors who are people of color and write about environmental issues.
To stick with our mission, we made sure to link all the books to online bookstores that are not Amazon.

“Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi. Her writings include numerous scientific articles and the books Gathering Moss, which was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing in 2005, and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, to be released in October 2013. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only the restoration of ecological communities but the restoration of our relationships to land. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.”
Braiding Sweetgrass - "As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert)."




Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development
The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics

Medical Apartheid: "The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present - "Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans."
Green Deen - What Islam Teaches about Protecting the Planet


"Shelton Johnson dreamed of mountains as a boy, living in inner-city Detroit..."I can't forget that little black kid in Detroit," he says. "And I can't not think of the other kids, just like me – in Detroit, Oakland, Watts, Anacostia – today. How do I get them here? How do I let them know about the buffalo soldier history, to let them know that we, too, have a place here? How do I make that bridge, and make it shorter and stronger? Every time I go to work and put the uniform on, I think about them."

Afro-Vegan: Farm Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed (a cookbook)-
We hope you find these sources helpful to diversify your reading! Happy reading :)
By Kate Hoffman