Black Land Back Is Non-Negotiable! Author & Activist Brea Baker on Reparations, Nature-based Healing and Reclaiming Community Power

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Season 1 | Episode 18

This episode is for the freedom dreamers, the soil stewards, and the truth-tellers. Brea Baker—author of Rooted—joins us to crack open the spiritual wound of stolen land, unpack the real meaning of sustainability, and call in the ancestral wisdom that whitewashed greenwashing keeps trying to silence.

We talk reparations—not the watered-down version, but the globally recognized, historically backed international law kind. Brea drops facts that had the power go out mid-recording (coincidence? The ops said no). From eco-therapy to generational wealth, we explore why Black folks deserve more than survival—we deserve leisure, legacy, and land to call our own.

If you’ve ever questioned why you feel disconnected from nature, or been told that sustainability doesn’t include your grandma’s backyard remedies or your uncle’s fishing trips, this one’s for you. This episode is a call to reclaim joy, demand justice, and decolonize what we "think" we deserve.

MORE ABOUT BREA

Brea Baker is a writer and activist whose book, ROOTED: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, was published with PRH/One World Books. ROOTED details her family’s experiences across the South and makes another case for reparations to include land distribution. ROOTED has been celebrated in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Apple Books, the New York Times, iHeart Radio’s The Breakfast Club, Harper’s BAZAAR, Ms. Magazine, and more. Brea also regularly contributes reported op-eds and personal essays to ELLE and Refinery 29 Unbothered. With a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University, Brea believes deeply in political imagination and the need for nuanced storytelling. She is a collective member of BLIS (Black Liberation, Indigenous Sovereignty) as well as the Highland Project, and is on the board of The Gathering for Justice and Black Farmers’ Market NC.

“It just takes so much wealth because it’s been so privatized in our country. But what a beautiful thing for little Black kids to grow up knowing the beauty of a mountain up close, knowing the beauty of a pristine lake or river, knowing how to fish, knowing how to hunt, being able benefit from that. And so that’s something that I really am working still on decolonizing my mind around and saying, is this why people stuff or have I just been conditioned to not even think that I wanted it? Meanwhile, they are getting to enjoy all of the eco pleasures while I am breathing in toxic air and drinking in lead infested.”

— Brea