EGA President and CEO
A message from EGA President and CEO, Tamara Toles O'Laughlin:
EGA honors Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of four million enslaved humans delayed access to basic freedom in the United States. We commemorate delivery on the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation to all Americans and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment as a pillar of the union of states.
Juneteenth is relevant for our community of environmental grantmakers. The legacy of delayed emancipation includes a multisector and multigenerational rigor to liberate the most remote parts of the Confederacy. And its remnants live on today. Each of us bears witness to the legacy that leads to environmental justice. In our own ways, we push back against delayed benefits in excluded, remote, and racialized communities across geographies.
The ongoing struggle against White supremacy has fomented the terms of present-day challenges as a sector. A philanthropic response with a racial equity point of view is necessary for effective interventions for people and planet facing a broken status quo. We collectively face compounding threats to democracy, oppression embedded in policy, and narratives that aim to rewrite history, hide the truth and restrict bodily autonomy.
EGA honors the legacy and rigor of Black liberation movements which have seeded the work of racial equity, repair, gender and trans equality and the liberation of all peoples. We elevate the continued fight for reparations, racial equity, and economic justice in the United States. As Ms. Opal Lee, the ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’ said, “…none of us are free until we are all free.”
In this tenuous time for people and planet, EGA will continue to strategize, learn, and realize a present-day focus on the meaning of equity in the environment and connect it to dignity, choice, and expansive freedom. Philanthropy’s partnership in the labor of advancing racial equity in the environmental sector is essential. As a team, EGA will continue to support members in operationalizing racial equity and repair in our sector. At our upcoming Fall Retreat, we will direct our collective energy toward ecosystem healing. It’s philanthropy’s prerogative to resource movements, give voice to racial equity work, and support infrastructure that moves communities from surviving to thriving.
As we chart our path forward, we remember and celebrate Black freedom, healing, and living legacies of leadership for liberation.
In Solidarity,
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
President and CEO