Amelia Southern-Uribe

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Supporting equitable climate education

Amelia Southern-Uribe, 21, grew up in various parts of the US South, always in communities that were at increased environmental risk, including one community hard hit by the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Living in these communities helped them recognize early on that environmental justice is connected to the liberation of immigrants, people of color, queer people, and members of other marginalized communities.

In 2019, Southern-Uribe founded the first Arkansas chapter of Zero Hour, an organization dedicated to environmental justice. The chapter, in Fayetteville, AK, created a model for the growth of chapters in nearby Bentonville and Conway, putting Arkansas on the map for Southern climate activists.

However, Southern-Uribe wanted to do more to combat Arkansas’s low rankings in education (49th in the nation), knowing that racism, injustice, and environmental neglect are all exacerbated by the educational disparities faced by youth in marginalized communities. So, in 2022, they co-founded Roots magazine, which disseminates regional and generational environmental knowledge and amplifies the voices of BIPOC Southern individuals. Roots, which has since published two editions, also provides free art supplies to writers and artists to help them translate their stories into mediums such as visual art, music, essays, and recipes. Within its pilot year, Southern-Uribe raised more than $7,800 to distribute free copies of the magazine to students, changemakers, and community members across the state.