Why Students Of Color Are Stepping Up To Lead Climate Strikes
The youth-led movement builds on the momentum of the increasingly Black and Brown leadership behind the Green New Deal. Kawika Ke Koa Pegram has lived his entire life in island communities and is all too familiar with what sea level rise looks like firsthand. Pegram, a 17-year-old junior in high school, recently moved back to Hawai‘i—where he was born—from the Philippines. Two years later, Hurricane Walaka hit the state. “It was one of the worst storms the island has seen in modern history,” he remembers. “It had floods that went up to your knees and legs.”