Just Recovery
Respond Recover Rebuild
An Overview of Just Recovery
“Just Recovery has proven to be a powerful model that creates the foundational and relational networks and infrastructure needed to activate an appropriate grassroots emergency response for immediate recovery, and potentially a long-term rebuild that could span decades.”
From devastating hurricanes to raging wildfires and beyond, we have seen how deeply inequitable systems amplify the impacts of the climate crisis on marginalized communities. These communities, already bearing the brunt of systemic injustices, are hit first and hardest by increasingly severe and frequent climate disasters. The U.S. government’s track record in these situations has been one of slow, inequitable, and often discriminatory responses.
In addition to governmental failures, large Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) often arrive too late, operate at high costs, and tend to be disconnected from the specific needs of local communities. Meanwhile, long-term recovery efforts in critical areas such as water, food, housing, infrastructure, and energy, especially for communities excluded from municipal climate or Just Transition plans, often take years to fully address.
In response, grassroots mutual aid networks and community-led solutions are emerging as powerful alternatives. These efforts provide more effective, culturally responsive, and cost-efficient disaster relief—often for a fraction of the billions spent by government agencies. The frontline communities most impacted by climate change are developing the skills, relationships, and strategies necessary to address not only the immediate impacts of climate disasters but also the deeper inequalities caused by the extractive, fossil fuel-based economy.
The Just Recovery framework embodies this approach. Rooted in principles of justice, it centers the needs, visions, and leadership of those most impacted by climate disruptions. By prioritizing the well-being, power, and self-determination of frontline communities, Just Recovery not only helps rebuild after disasters but does so in a way that strengthens these communities for the future. When the needs of the most vulnerable are addressed, the entire community benefits, creating a more resilient, equitable society for all.
Artwork by Micah Bazant
Just Recovery Brigade to Guåhan
CJA’s Just Recovery Working Group traveled to Guåhan in October 2024 to support Micronesia Climate Change Alliance’s (MCCA) community resilience efforts. During our time in the Mariåna Islands, we visited MCCA’s newly established resilience hub, participated in a 1-mile journey through the sacred lands of Litekyan (Ritidian) where the US military is building a live fire training range, and attended MCCA’s annual Making Waves conference centered on community care and a just recovery. A large component of this trip was learning how harnessing CHamoru customs and culture provides community based solutions to climate disasters as well as resistance to ongoing militarization.
Narrative Power
Translocal Organizing
A Peoples' Teach-In
The Black Caucus is a people oriented movement body seeking to deepen and expand capacity among frontline communities within the African diaspora. No matter the circumstances of any individual we are all impacted by climate change and the current climate crisis. In this light, the Black Caucus is working to develop a Climate Justice Peoples’ Teach-In geared towards Black communities and designed to spark the next generation of Black climate and environmental justice leaders.
Building the Bigger We
Black Caucus Jubilee
35 members of the CJA Black Caucus came together in New Orleans, Louisiana for the Black Caucus Jubilee, where we deepened our relationships, regrounded ourselves with the roots and culture of the Black Caucus, and established a structure for internal leadership. Video by Keenan Rhodes
Ten Prong Vision for Black Communities in Environmental Justice Movement
- Black communities will have sovereign decision-making and self-determination in our lives, health and environmental outcomes.
- Black communities will center healing, patience, and care on personal and interpersonal levels.
- Black communities will clearly define and fight for liberation.
- Black communities will control our narrative and center joy.
- Black communities will radically transform to meet our needs.
- Black communities will value and center our sacred and ancestral connection with the earth, fire, air, and water.
- Black communities will deepen our trust, security, and relationships to bolster our collective strength.
- Black communities will center our values of love, empathy, curiosity, and courage.
- Black communities will create and sustain businesses that serve and protect the environment.
- Black communities will respect everyone and how they identify, bringing our whole selves into spaces.
Our Climate Justice Black Caucus: A History
We as Black people in the diaspora assert that there is no such thing as climate justice without environmental justice, for it is the cruel and exploitative treatment of our communities’ land, air, water, soil, and people that has given rise to the climate crisis and we are the ones who bear the brunt of the burden.
The Memphis, Tennessee Sanitation Workers fight was one of the first documented incidents where African-Americans led a national and broad coalition for safe working conditions and equitable wages for African American workers.
Residents of the predominantly Black Warren County, North Carolina began protesting the construction of a chemical-waste landfill near Afton where the state planned to bury 400,000 cubic yards of PCB tainted soil. PCB stands for polychlorinated biphenyls which are highly toxic industrial compounds.
McCastle v. Rollins Environmental Services’ lawsuit ruled that individuals living in communities enduring environmental harm could sue corporations as a class. The area where the lawsuit was focused was in St. Gabriel, Louisiana commonly referred to as “cancer-alley” where Jacobs Drive was home to fifteen cancer victims in a two-block stretch. Half a mile away, there were seven cancer victims living on one block. In fact, the eighty-five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River running from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is known as the Petrochemical Corridor and harbors 135 plants near predominantly Black neighborhoods.
The People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit brings together 1,100+ Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian Pacific Islander, and other People of Color to declare Principles of Environmental Justice and expand the mainstream concept of the environment to mean more than the natural landscape but where people live, work, play, and pray.
Decades of air pollution contributes to hotter weather, sea-level rise, and powerful hurricanes such as Hurricane Katrina that ripped through the southern United States. Systemic neglect of the levies leads to massive flooding of homes, playgrounds, and businesses in the predominantly Black city, New Orleans.
During the Our Power National Convening, co-hosted by the Our Power Richmond Coalition and Climate Justice Alliance, the idea for the formation of a Black Caucus arises in order to engage Black communities and center Black leadership within the climate justice movement.
Black Caucus National Convening is held and Denise Abdul-Rahman of the NAACP and Eric Harrison from Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy are elected to serve as Black Caucus representatives on the CJA steering committee, solidifying formal leadership positions within CJA.
Black 2 Just Transition Convening is co-hosted by East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition (EMEAC) and CJA to bring together 80 members of CJA’s Black Caucus and Black members of the It Takes Roots Alliances as a vehicle through which to develop a long-term plan to build power, respond to political shifts, heal and strengthen movement relations across multiple frontline communities of color. From the convening the vision and goals of the caucus solidify.
The Black Caucus kicks off the 2023 CJA Member Convening with a Skate Night, and premieres the Black Caucus documentary "Grasping at the Roots - a love letter to the movement," at the historic Madame Walker Legacy Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana.
35 members of the CJA Black Caucus come together in New Orleans, Louisiana for the Black Caucus Jubilee. The goal and purpose of this gathering is to deepen relationships, reground ourselves with our roots and culture, and establish a structure for internal leadership.
The Black Caucus awards $170,000 to 11 Black-led organizations spanning 9 states to make a meaningful impact within Black communities. These funds help build capacity in Black communities, allowing us to lead unapologetically with pro-Black intention.
Participating CJA Members
If you are a member of the Climate Justice Alliance and are from a Black-led organization wishing to participate in the Black Caucus, please reach out to the Black Caucus at [email protected] for more information.
Black and Afrodiaspora individuals from CJA member organizations are also invited to join Black Caucus meetings, please reach out to the Black Caucus to join!
