Earth Day in Black Appalachia: From Camp Nelson to a Sustainable Future

By Jim Embry

Earth Day began as a call to awareness. In Black Appalachia, it must now become a call to transformation.

Each year, April 22 invites us to reflect on the health of the planet. Just a day later, on April 23, I mark my own passage of time—my birthday. And on July 4, our reflections carry additional weight as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary. These moments—ecological, personal and national—ask us not only to look back, but to decide what kind of future we are willing to build.

Here in Appalachia, that question is inseparable from history.

At Camp Nelson in Kentucky, thousands of formerly enslaved men, women and children gathered during the Civil War, seeking freedom and forging new relationships with land. What began as a Union Army supply depot became a site of refuge, resistance and possibility. The men enlisted into the USColored Troops. Women and children planted crops, attended school, built homes and imagined futures grounded in land stewardship and self-determination.

That legacy matters.

Because the story of Black Appalachia is not only one of labor and extraction. It is also a story of knowledge, resilience and deep ecological relationship. Black farmers, gardeners and land stewards have long practiced forms of sustainability—saving seeds, tending soil and building community under conditions of exclusion and dispossession.

Yet today, we face a different kind of challenge—one shaped by systems that continue to extract from both land and people.

Coal, timber and industrial agriculture have left lasting marks on this region. At the same time, Black farmers have been systematically pushed off the land through discrimination, policy and economic pressure. What remains is a landscape rich in potential, but burdened by inequity.

For more than fifty years, Earth Day has helped raise awareness of environmental issues. But awareness alone has not been enough.

We are living in a moment of convergence. Climate change, soil degradation, food insecurity and economic inequality are not separate crises. They are interconnected outcomes of systems designed for extraction rather than sustainability.

What is needed now is not incremental change, but systems transformation.

Through decades of work in Kentucky and across Appalachia—alongside global networks like Terra Madre—I have seen both the challenges and the possibilities. I have come to understand that sustainability is not simply about technology or policy. It is about culture, memory and power.

That is why I offer the Six Pathways to a Sustainable Future as a framework grounded in both history and possibility.

The first pathway is Earth-Centric and Woman-Centric thinking. In Black Appalachian communities, women have long been the keepers of gardens, seeds and knowledge. Their leadership—often unrecognized—has sustained families and communities across generations.

The second pathway is Indigenous Wisdom. Appalachia sits on land shaped by Indigenous stewardship long before state lines were drawn. Sustainable futures must begin with recognition of that history and respect for that knowledge.

The third pathway draws from George Washington Carver and the African American Agrarian Ethos. Carver’s work reminds us that agriculture is not just production—it is relationship. His teachings, rooted in care for soil and spirit, echo the practices of Black farmers throughout Appalachia who have cultivated land under conditions of scarcity and exclusion.

The fourth pathway recognizes Youth, Art and Hip-Hop as forces of transformation. Across Appalachia, young people are reclaiming identity, telling new stories and challenging old narratives about what this region is—and what it can become.

The fifth pathway centers Seed Work and the Terra Madre Network. Seeds carry memory. In Black Appalachian communities, heirloom varieties and traditional practices connect past to present. Through local efforts and global networks, we are rebuilding food systems rooted in culture and resilience.

The sixth pathway calls for Transformative Vision—what I often describe as “thinking out of the barn.” It is an invitation to move beyond the limitations imposed on Appalachia and to imagine systems that sustain both people and place.

But imagination alone is not enough. Institutions must change.

In March, speaking to students at Ohio State University’s landscape architecture conference, I challenged them to become “imagineers of a sustainable future”—to design systems that regenerate rather than extract.

That challenge extends directly to Appalachia.

Because universities are the most powerful institutions on Earth. They shape the leaders who make decisions about land, policy and economy. If Black Appalachian voices, histories and knowledge systems are not centered in higher education, they will not be reflected in the decisions that shape our future.

But if they are—if universities embrace sustainability as foundational, and if they recognize the wisdom embedded in communities like ours—then transformation becomes possible.

This is the work of the Systems Transformation Partnership: connecting communities, institutions and movements to redesign how we live.

Across Appalachia, that work is already underway. Community gardens are reclaiming land. Black farmers are returning to agriculture. Local food systems are being rebuilt. Cultural traditions are being renewed.

These are not isolated efforts. They are seeds.

The question is whether we will nurture them.

Earth Day in Black Appalachia must be more than a symbolic moment. It must be a call to action—a commitment to restoring land, supporting farmers and building systems rooted in justice and sustainability.

It must also be a call to remembrance.

From Camp Nelson to the present, the story of Black Appalachia is one of struggle and possibility. It is a story that reminds us that freedom is not only political. It is ecological. It is economic. It is cultural.

As we move from April 22 to April 23, and toward the nation’s 250th anniversary, we are invited to reflect on what kind of legacy we will leave.

Will we continue systems that extract and divide?

Or will we build systems that regenerate and connect?

Earth Day is no longer just a day.

In Black Appalachia, it is a continuation of a long journey—from land to freedom, and from memory to possibility.

The future is already being planted.

The question is whether we will help it grow.