Dontay Wimberly is a Georgia native and has lived in Atlanta his whole life. His formative years were mainly spent on the South Side, learning, growing and becoming. When he started college, Dontay became very active in Social Movements. Since 2015 he has been organizing in various capacities. Each new crisis, be it various uprisings against state violence, tumultuous elections, financial crises, impending climate apocalypse, or flooding in the streets of Atlanta, provides a new opportunity to reflect learn and create a vision for the future.

Dontay channels his political passions through various forms of media including, song, poems, and the occasional Instagram rant (@WimboXIV). Dontay has seen that through art, poets have the potential to map the future. He works to make the revolution irresistible.

With Climate Innovation's own Corrine Van Hook-Turner, he was recently featured on the Hip Hop Caucus' "The Coolest Show" podcast with Reverand Yearwood. The podcast redefines how we win on climate and environmental justice centering Black and Brown climate activists and communities of color.

He joined YBCL in September of 2020 and through a grant from YBCL, has recorded and produced an EP that weaves together his political astuteness, knowledge of history, and love of poetry. Meet Dontay at the YBCL Mini Dream Lab & EP Release Party Feb. 26, or check out one of his Instagram rants!

Vic Barrett was raised in New York as a first-generation Honduran-American. He is proud of his roots, with his family being part of the Garifuna community. As a plaintiff in the landmark Juliana v. U.S. climate change lawsuit, or speaking before the UN General Assembly, Vic has been a global voice for youth on climate. "Being born with a lot of intersecting identities—not just being black, but also being LatinX, and not just being queer, but also being trans and a first-generation American—I have a lot of experiences that have made me an empathetic person when I speak on climate justice."

Vic was 14 or 15 the first time he thought about climate change in Honduras. At his family's home, close to the beach, his mom was talking about how when she was younger, they used to have to walk a little bit to get to the beach. Now it’s just right there. Later he felt firsthand climate impacts in the form of Hurricane Sandy, when his home lost power and his school and local transport shut down.

He appreciates the uniqueness of his heritage of being Afro-Indigenous and Afro-Latino which inspires a lot of his connection to the natural world and the ways we can challenge ourselves to understand it better. He builds bridges to help people understand that Black, brown, and Indigenous leaders hold a lot of the knowledge and values we need to not only beat this climate crisis but also beat the negative values that have perpetuated the climate crisis. Vic is currently a Network Organizer for the Power Shift Network.

One of our starting YBCL youth, Keem King hails from the east side of Detroit, although at any time you might spot him in various parts of the city cruising on his skateboard with a few handfuls of wild plants that he probably foraged from some “unkempt” land, or someone’s backyard. Keem dreams and builds-- he founded the "Redzone Garden". It's the only place in a 1-mile radius with fresh fruits and vegetables and they're all organic. When the COVID 19 pandemic hit, Keem went into action and distributed fruit, veggies and water in his community.

Keem's efforts for sustainability led him to teach local artistic sustainability classes and climate literacy... with notable recognition. Keem was one of two writers for the NOAA "Climate Literacy for All" curriculum, which was featured in the New York Times. As part of the program, Keem focused on hands-on learning and had students come up with climate disruption solutions on their own.

When Keem saw gravestones unkempt and ignored at Elmwood Cemetery, he led efforts to clean and restore the markers to honor the memorials and continues honoring the memorials of his ancestors and those of the area. This is a beautiful enactment of Sankofa (an Akan tradition of honoring the past in order to move forward).

Though pandemic times changed things for him and his work, he continues to create-- now to support not just the community but his young family. Through his art and sustainability work, he continues to find ways for him and his community to thrive and live more sustainably. Keem is an educator, artist, musician, and father. Find and support him on his art shop on his website.

Check out YBCL youth Destiny Hodges' powerful article in Teen Vogue earlier this year. She says, "It only took me one internship at a “Big Green” organization — my very first internship — to know that the mainstream environmental movement is not a safe space for Black people. The movement is predominantly white and whitewashed."

"So we must center Black liberation movements and frameworks, as Black liberation is liberation for everyone in a society within which global racial capitalism is upheld to exploit and eradicate the most melanated." To that end, Destiny founded Gen Green, a 100% Black youth and womxn-led organization reimagining and securing a regenerative and abundant world.