All Revolution Is Based on Land, with Leah Penniman
On A People’s Climate: What the soil can teach us in the fight for climate justice.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
All Revolution Is Based On Land with Leah Penniman | A People’s Climate
Solving the climate crisis isn’t about reinventing the wheel or the latest tech scheme — it can be as simple as growing food and building community.
Host Shilpi Chhotray chats with Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, about the intersection of land, food justice, and racial equity. Leah shares how Afro-Indigenous farming practices offer solutions to the climate crisis— but also serve as a tool for personal and community healing.
From the legacy of Black farmers in the U.S. to the ongoing exploitation of agricultural workers, this conversation reveals how land is not only the foundation of sustenance but the basis of revolution, independence, and justice.
Key Topics Covered:
- Farming as a spiritual and ecological practice that reconnects humans to the earth.
- Pitfalls of Industrial agriculture, from soil degradation, pesticide contamination, and contributions to the climate crisis
- Afro-Indigenous farming practices that sequester carbon, restore soil, and increase resilience to extreme weather.
- Land justice and reparations: Historical land theft, racialized wealth disparities, and efforts to build Black land commons.
- The Trump Administration's impact on Black Farmers and the agri-food industry.
- How modern food systems continue to exploit the most vulnerable, including undocumented farmworkers and incarcerated individuals, whose labor produces the food we eat
Resources
- Soul Fire Farm
- Farming While Black by Lean Penniman
- Black Earth Wisdom by Leah Penniman
- AP investigation “Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands”
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Solving the climate crisis isn’t about reinventing the wheel or the latest tech scheme — it can be as simple as growing food and building community.
Host Shilpi Chhotray chats with Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, about the intersection of land, food justice, and racial equity. Leah shares how Afro-Indigenous farming practices offer solutions to the climate crisis— but also serve as a tool for personal and community healing.
From the legacy of Black farmers in the U.S. to the ongoing exploitation of agricultural workers, this conversation reveals how land is not only the foundation of sustenance but the basis of revolution, independence, and justice.
Key Topics Covered:
- Farming as a spiritual and ecological practice that reconnects humans to the earth.
- Pitfalls of Industrial agriculture, from soil degradation, pesticide contamination, and contributions to the climate crisis
- Afro-Indigenous farming practices that sequester carbon, restore soil, and increase resilience to extreme weather.
- Land justice and reparations: Historical land theft, racialized wealth disparities, and efforts to build Black land commons.
- The Trump Administration’s impact on Black Farmers and the agri-food industry.
- How modern food systems continue to exploit the most vulnerable, including undocumented farmworkers and incarcerated individuals, whose labor produces the food we eat
Resources
- Soul Fire Farm
- Farming While Black by Lean Penniman
- Black Earth Wisdom by Leah Penniman
AP investigation “Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands”
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/subscribe.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Reframing Resistance (Live from NYC Climate Week) | A People’s Climate
For this special season finale, recorded live during NYC Climate Week, host Shilpi Chhotray convenes a powerful storytelling event with three frontline media makers: Chantel Comardelle, Alexandra Norris, and B. Preston Lyles.
This is more than a conversation about films or campaigns — it’s an intimate window into the lived realities of climate and environmental injustice. From Indigenous land loss in Louisiana, to the ongoing fight against the petrochemical buildout in Cancer Alley, to exposing the violence of toxic prisons, this discussion centers the human stories too often sidelined in mainstream climate narratives.
Our guests speak candidly about their experiences, what sustains them in the face of systemic harm, why frontline voices must lead solutions, and how storytelling itself becomes a vital tool of resistance, survival, and collective power.
This live storytelling event was made possible in partnership with Dr. Margot Brown, Senior Vice President of Justice and Equity at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Frontline Resource Institute. Special thanks to Chess Jakobs, Counterstream Media’s Impact Producer, who produced this event.
Key Topics
- Frontline climate and environmental justice: Stories from communities directly impacted by the climate crisis and extractive industries.
- Indigenous displacement: The Isle de Jean Charles Choctaw Nation and climate-driven migration.
- Sharon Lavigne’s fight against petrochemical expansion in Cancer Alley
- Toxic prisons: The intersection of mass incarceration, environmental harm, and systemic injustice.
- How spiritual grounding and faith sustains organizing. Using film and media to reclaim narratives and highlight underrepresented stories.
- Narrative power: How media shapes perception, policy, and the climate movement’s priorities.
Resources
Isle de Jean Charles Choctaw Nation
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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