Rethinking Possible

Garrett Bucks founded The Barnraisers Project, an organization that “equips people who’ve never thought of themselves as organizers with the tools to move their social networks from denial and defensiveness to action.” Like any meaningful anti-racism work, it requires participants—in this case white people—to sustain discomfort and be willing to stare down stark truths that are easier to turn away from. But he believes personal tur...

Step foot into Louisiana's bayous and you’ll smell the strong scent of azaleas even before you smell the cooking. Amidst the sweet fragrance of flowers and mouth-watering cuisine, an odious history of racial division sits in the foreground of these communities on the frontlines of climate change. For lawyer and activist Colette Pichon Battle, growing up in this cocktail of complexity and beauty has greatly informed her work to dism...

Getting the right medicine at the right time can mean the difference between life or death. Yet until COVID-19, there hasn’t been widespread recognition of the importance of creating easy and equitable access to life-saving medications. That’s where Priti Krishtel comes in. While the pandemic has arguably accelerated a movement around global access to medicines, she’s spent the last 20 years working to uncover how the patent system...

Yordanos Eyoel emigrated to the United States at age 13, in the aftermath of the Ethiopian Civil War—a war that started long before she was born. Yordanos saw firsthand the direct impact of an unstable government on her family's life, after her mother, a journalist, had to seek political asylum in America. Although she went from privilege to poverty seemingly overnight, the stability of the American political system outweighed the ...

What can we learn about resilience from street vendors? Just about everything, says Harish Hande of SELCO, an organization that delivers decentralized solar energy to the poor in India. Tackling both poverty and the energy crisis at once, Harish’s pioneering work relies on the belief that every individual offers their own expertise, and you don’t need a PhD to solve the world’s toughest problems. 

Harish says our obsession with pedi...

Based in Nigeria, Dr. Christian Happi is a molecular biologist whose day job is combating infectious diseases. Alongside his life-saving scientific work, he’s on a mission to embolden young African scientists to take the narrative of Africa into their own hands. For far too long, says Happi, the West has failed to credit Africans for innovation and scientific breakthroughs—a legacy of the power dynamics of colonialism and anti-Blac...

Too often we rely on technical models to address racism—implicit bias training, examining data and statistics, crafting institutional statements. But the very systems that uphold racial inequity Esther Armah says, are actually propped up by emotion, not logic. Changing the brutal realities of systemic racism requires embarking on a mission of “emotional justice.” For some, an “intimate reckoning” in our closest relationships is nec...

If there’s one thing Alessandra Orofino won’t accept, it’s the status quo. She believes democracies can’t be healthy and thrive unless citizens roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of upholding democratic values. To that end, she co-founded Nossas, a Brazil-based activist organization that embraces fresh and unconventional ways to help people participate in the political life of their communities. 

Nossas took shape in 2011 wh...

Rodney Foxworth says the racial “wealth gap” is a misnomer because it implies something that’s achievable to close. “Wealth chasm” is more on the nose since we’re talking about disparities created by centuries of oppression. Growing up in Baltimore, Rodney witnessed firsthand what many Black and brown communities face in America—systemic racism, over policing, economic dislocation. Now, as CEO of Common Future, he draws on that liv...