Reverend Vernon Walker shares climate advocacy experience: Seasoned director of grassroots social justice organizations speaks on current administration, paths forward

Ryan O'Connell / THE GATEPOST

By Ryan O’Connell Associate Editor Arts & Ideas, in conjunction with Campus Sustainability Coordinator Megan Mayer, hosted the Rev. Vernon Walker to speak on the importance of climate policy and his experience working toward legislation April 3. Mayer introduced Walker, who has held a number of leadership positions in advocating for climate and social justice in the past. Walker is currently the director of content and external strategy at the Progress & Poverty Institute (PPI) in Princeton, New Jersey, and was formerly a program director of both Clean Water Action Massachusetts and the Communities Responding to Extreme Weather program in Cambridge, Mayer said. She added during Walker’s time as a climate and social justice advocate in Boston, he was featured in The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Commonwealth Magazine, among other publications, and on a variety of news syndicates, such as Fox 25, NBC10 Boston, and CBS Boston. Walker first said he was glad to be with the FSU community, despite the “uncertainties of the times we are living in,” and sent warm greetings from his colleagues at the PPI. He first explained the name of the institute, which had recently changed from the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation to its current title, and its 1925 origin. “The foundation was created to share the ideas of Henry George, especially those … in his seminal work, in a book that he published called ‘Progress and Poverty,’” he added. Walker said he was happy to be back speaking at FSU, and had last been at the University in January 2024 as a keynote speaker for the Martin Luther King programming series hosted by the Greater Framingham Community Church. “I’m also delighted to be here at Framingham State, as it is - as you all know - one of the most reputable public universities in the state of Massachusetts,” he said. “And is a school where future leaders are being shaped … across a wide range of disciplines, including the arts, humanities, sciences, and professional fields as young people are being prepared to be change agents … in our society,” he added. Walker said since he was last at FSU, the world has changed drastically, but was grateful for the opportunity to share what he thinks is necessary for “effective climate advocacy in the era of Trump. “There are a lot of social justice issues that are worthy to fight for. For example - immigration rights, human rights, educational justice rights, housing justice. The preeminent social justice issue of our time, I believe, is climate change,” he said. Walker said climate change is not a single special interest issue, and is instead a layered and complex problem which affects public health, foreign policy, agriculture, the economy, civil rights, immigration, and much more. He added to many people, the effects of climate change start and stop with the polar bears. This is not true, he said. Climate change does melt the poles, but it also causes heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods in other parts of the world, killing and disrupting lives, he added. Walker said climate change is connected to issues of racial justice as well. “Those who are disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis are those who are also disproportionately harmed by educational injustice, so these issues are inextricably linked,” he said. Walker then addressed President Trump’s handling of the United States’ environmental policy. He said since reelected, Trump has rolled back pollution regulation, boosted the fossil fuel industry, cut federal grants to green energy, fired thousands of employees across a number of agencies - including the EPA - and paused billions of dollars in grants for projects which include climate and energy use - some of which authorized by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law - among other actions which minimize or deny the effects of climate change. Walker said the federal government’s actions have made it more difficult for state initiatives, such as Massachusetts’ goal to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, to be completed due to the removal of funding. Non-profits, he said, are also feeling the changes from the federal government. The Mystic River Watershed Association had a $500,000 grant eliminated, which was awarded to address heat issues caused by the urban heat island effect in cities like Chelsea, Malden, and Everett, he added. Walker talked about the federal abductions of a Tufts student and a member of Columbia University, who were both taken because they were vocal in their support of Gaza, he said. “In all aspects of our society, segments of the population are really being impacted by the federal administration’s approach to housing justice, to climate justice, to racial justice. Therefore … we are perhaps taking a major step back,” he said. Walker said he finds hope from history’s changemakers. “When I think of previous social justice advocates like Dr. Martin Luther King and Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others, that they had the strength to endure the fight of their generation,” he said. “We, each of us, individually and collectively hold the power to work toward a world in which all people can live lives of dignity, wellbeing, and love,” Walker said. “If I was in church I’d ask you to say ‘amen,’” he added. Walker encouraged attendees to support organizations fighting against racial, housing, and climate injustice, with money, or time, or both. “History teaches us brothers and sisters that when we unite, that is when change happens,” he said. He added now is the time for activists of all kinds, people of all faiths, and elected officials fighting for a Green New Deal to join hands and advocate for change. “It is time to get up and to know that love wins, that justice wins, that righteousness can win. “When we connect and we strategize, when we connect and we organize, when we connect and we mobilize we know that love will win,” he said. Walker asked attendees to understand the importance of putting love for others at the center of their advocacy, and to understand the necessity of standing up even when it is not popular. “Rosa Parks didn’t think that when she sat down, she was standing up,” he said. “By her sitting down and refusing to give up that seat she was saying ‘no’ to injustice, she was saying ‘no’ to racial inequity, she was saying ‘no’ to dehumanization. “So as many of you are finishing up your studies or perhaps finishing up this semester and going toward the completion of your degree, remember and never forget that we are stronger together than we are apart. “Remember and never forget that our togetherness is an instrument of redemption. Our togetherness can produce systemic change. “As this generation continues to rise up and say ‘no’ to injustice, … it is then that we can live out that American dream, where everybody, as Dr. King said, can be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin - and this is what gives me hope.”