Environmental Justice and the Soul of America: An Interview with the Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley

Chapters

00:00 The Soul of America Is the Environment 

00:35 From Civil Rights to a Life of Ministry 

02:07 Meeting Sally Bingham and Finding a New Calling 

03:12 Bringing Enthusiasm and Urgency to Climate Work 

03:34 Faith, Science, and Environmental Justice in the Black Community 

05:37 Organize, Strategize, Mobilize 

06:48 Running His Leg of the Race

“Dr. King told us that we had to look at the soul of America. And in my estimation, the soul of America is the environment, because if you destroy the soul, then nothing else exists.”

The Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley is best known for his 25 years of service as pastor of the historic Providence Missionary Baptist Church of Atlanta, where he delivered sermons connecting faith, civil rights, and climate justice. A member of the Drawdown Georgia Leadership Council, Rev. Durley joined the civil rights movement in 1960 while studying psychology at Tennessee State University, later serving in the Peace Corps in Nigeria before earning degrees in community mental health, urban education, and divinity.

In 2011, Rev. Durley was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, and in 2015 he was recognized at the White House as a “Champion of Change” for his work on climate change. In this intimate interview, he shares his life’s work and his perspective on winning hearts and minds in the ongoing effort to solve for climate change.

What You’ll Learn

• How Rev. Durley’s decades in the civil rights movement shaped his approach to climate advocacy.
• Why he believes faith and science aren’t incongruent, but work together.
• How environmental justice connects directly to health disparities in the African American community.
• Why he sees the current moment as the mobilization phase of a longer movement.
• What gives him hope watching young people of different races and faiths organize around climate change.

Continue reading in our companion blog for more on Rev. Durley’s work bringing faith to the fight for environmental justice.

Download the Interview Transcript

Prefer to read the conversation instead? Download the complete transcript of this interview to explore Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley’s reflections on faith, civil rights, and climate justice.