At our next Earth Optimism webinar, hear from Atiya Wells, founder of the nonprofit Backyard Basecamp in Baltimore City. Atiya will highlight the importance of equity in landscape design, creation and community cultivation. With their BLISS Meadows project, Backyard Basecamp has reclaimed 10 acres of vacant land in their neighborhood to be used for environmental education and community greenspace, and to help communities of color reconnect with nature.

Over the course of four years, enslaved people worked to turn the Civil War into a freedom war. Slowly but surely, they pushed President Abraham Lincoln and his commanders in the field toward embracing emancipation as a war aim and to compel them to take the giant steps forward needed to abolish slavery once and for all. On June 19, 1865, the federal government finally met that objective, declaring slavery dead across the country. This momentous event marked a new birth of freedom—an occasion we now commemorate as Juneteenth. Registration...