Angelou Ezeilo builds creek side trails on MLK Day 2015. Photo by Bill Head
I knew only enough to be intrigued when long time friend Angelou Ezeilo asked me to interview her about her new book at a public book signing party.
When I read an advance copy of Engage, Connect, Protect I was all in. Her work in Atlanta helping to build the BeltLine, the South Fork Conservancy and PATH foundation trails is the backbone of the tale.
“It was the warmth and kindliness of old black ladies that first opened my eyes to the dangerous distance between people of color and the environment.” That’s the opening line and it only gets better.
This Spelman woman, gorgeous and full of life, drove all over Atlanta buying land for these non-profit foundations building trails and parks for the public good. Much of the land she needed to buy was owned by people in majority black neighborhoods who trusted her too much. “They’d tell me ‘Oh baby, whatever you think I need to do, you go ahead and do that.’ I’d be thinking, Noooo! I need to negotiate against you!”
The ethical conflict, she writes, waked her to the need to educate people of color, the revelation that “my people were the victims of a massive information gap.” The awakening led her to form the Greening Youth Foundation, the nation’s largest organization connecting under-represented young adults to the outdoors and careers in conservation.
When we arrived for the book signing party at Georgia Power’s headquarters in midtown, I knew we’d have some fun. The crowd was familiar, the hors d’oeuvres healthy and delicious. When we settled into armchairs for the interview, I hoped our friendship would smooth any potential awkwardness of the racial conversation. And it did. Now she and the growing staff at the Greening Youth Foundation are educating, by example, the value of being outdoors, working in green jobs and sending entrepreneurs of color into that still mostly white world. The trails she helped to build help Atlantans connect across cultural and geographic divides.
But her story begins with her own pleasure in being outside, in trusting that nature itself is a good place to be. The BeltLine coming through Morningside connecting a ring of neighborhoods to each other is a reality because of her early work. We can read her book, published by New Society publishers in Canada. And then we can take a walk outside, in the parks and nature preserves she helped to create, and be grateful for her work.
Sally Sears December 2019