Who’s Reading: Bethany, Circulation Supervisor
Last Best Book Bethany Read: Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney
Why Bethany Liked It: This book is a collection of tightly-researched and compellingly-argued essays that explore why Black environmentalists are overwhelming ignored, and why Black Americans have been excluded from American environmental justice movement at large. A must-read for anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist, it asked me to consider who has access to outdoor spaces, the role leisure plays in environmentalism (and who has time for it), and it introduced me to Black American environmentalists I was not familiar with (John Francis and MaVynee Betsch, for starters). Follow this up with Harriet Washington’s A Terrible Thing to Waste!
In Three Words: Environmentalism’s racist history