Episode 25 | Dawn Richard on the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina: Ancestral Stories, Modern Colonization & Sustaining Our Power!

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, the storm still rages in our collective memory, not just as a natural disaster, but as a state-sanctioned genocide against Black communities in New Orleans. In this powerful conversation, Dominique Drakeford sits down with DAWN RICHARD who is an eclectic singer/songwriter, culture bearer and New Orleans native, to unravel the deeper truths of what Katrina exposed: environmental racism, modern colonization and the ongoing erasure of ancestral knowledge.Together, they discuss how sustainability is an inheritance carried through stories and rituals. It is community survival. From Cancer Alley to cultural preservation, from youth activism to intergenerational power, this episode refuses the sanitized narratives of climate disaster and demands that we center Black voices and the authentic lived experiences in the fight for environmental justice.This is more than remembrance. It’s a call to action. A reminder that the stripping away of our stories is the stripping away of our power. And a declaration that sustainability, at its root, has always been ours.Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!@Compost_Cotton_Cornrows