Kijani Spotlight: Interview with Founding Members Derron Coles, James Metoyer and Knowledge Murphy

My name is Kalimah Abioto. I am a part of the voice amplification committee which is a part of The Kijani Collective and is made up of  Black storytellers, creators and artists at the intersection of environment and ecology. I am a filmmaker and storyteller who loves nature and the study of ecology. I sat down with the founding members of Kijani to learn more about the collective. This is our interview.

Knowledge: My name is Knowledge Murphy and I'm a co-founder of the Kijani Collective. I'm also a co-founder of the Northwest Accelerator, which is a climate tech accelerator for black and underserved entrepreneurs. And I'm the owner of Black Man Green Plan LLC, which is the only black owned solar panel company in the state of Oregon. In that capacity, I install residential community solar and agrivoltaics, which is when people grow food underneath solar panels. So, you know, glad to be a part of this conversation and, I'm proud to be a co-founder of such a great thing.

James: My name is James Metoyer. I'm the founder and executive director of Inner City Collaborative, which is a nonprofit here in the Portland area. We do a lot of workforce development training and minority contractor training and homeowner education helping folks understand that intersection between energy efficiency and healthy homes. I'm originally from Louisiana, but I've been out in the Portland area for close to 18 years now. 

Derron: I'm Derron Coles and I am with DRC Learning Solutions. I'm the principal consultant and owner. We work primarily with environmental sector organizations on equity and inclusion challenges in their work and in their workplaces. I'm originally from Baltimore, born and raised. I moved to Oregon in 2000 for graduate school and just never left. I'm another co-founder of Kijani Collective and I'm happy to be here.

Knowledge: Awesome. Can I do mine over? I forgot to say where I'm from.

Kalimah:  Oh, say where you're from. Go ahead. 

Knowledge: Nah, nah, it’s okay. Sorry. 

Kalimah: You got to now. The people are going to want to know. 

Derron:  It's on your hat. (Milwaukee)

Knowledge: Oh yeah, It's on the hat. Everybody is like - “I wonder where he's from..."[Group: lol]

Knowledge Murphy, James Metoyer & Derron Coles

Kalimah: Can you all tell me how you started Kijani and what it is? Let the people know.

Derron: Well, it's Knowledge's brainchild. So, please Knowledge…

Knowledge: So, I was working for Multnomah County, which is the county that Portland, Oregon sits inside of, and I was in these meetings about environmental policy and environmental legislation, and I would be the only black person in the meeting. And so, I began wondering, if I don't go to this meeting, who is going to speak on behalf of black people? Because they would be saying stuff in these meetings and they would sound clueless as to what our community goes through. I realized, okay, not only will there be no black representation if I don't go to this meeting, I'm not from Portland. No one who's black who grew up in Portland is in the meeting to speak on behalf of the legacy issues or some of the concerns that long-term black residents have had. And so I went through this several times and I reached out to both James and Derron and said, "Hey, I'm in these meetings and this is happening to me. Are you experiencing stuff like this?" And they both overwhelmingly said, "Yes, I experienced that a lot." 

And so I just asked - "what would it look like if we tried to create something where if there was any discussion about legislation, policy or rule making connected to anything environmental whether that's environmental justice related, climate justice related or even economic things related to environmental situations, there has to be someone in the conversation that represents and speaks on behalf of the black community. And there needs to be someone who can report what was said back to the black community."  So we kept discussing this concept along with a few other people and eventually Derron gave it a name and it became what we now call the Kijani Collective.

So essentially, Kijani Collective is a black led nonprofit that focuses on climate resilience, environmental justice and economic development for black identified individuals and our community. We build power through initiatives. And so these initiatives amplify black voices, establishes black specific resilience hubs, trains black residents to do policy advocacy, and provides opportunities for black innovators and entrepreneurs to gain a foothold in the green economy.

-Knowledge Murphy

Kalimah: Cool. Cool. And what does Kijani mean?

We wanted to have a name that spoke to our history as black people and something that was also modern. Kijani is Swahili for green, or greenery. And so, it speaks to our roots. It also speaks to a word that we use to describe sustainability nowadays. So, that's why we chose it. 

-Derron Coles

James: I think it also kind of hits on that deep connection to you know not only the earth but sustainability  as we are thriving in our daily lives. And so I think just being able to push that forward with the work that we're doing with Kijani Collective.

Kalimah: How did you guys get to know each other and come in contact with one another?

James: So, I can start off on that one. 

At the time when I had moved back  from Louisiana. We ( Knowledge and I) really came to understand that a lot of the work he does in solar complements the work that I do in helping make homes more energy efficient. In the world of energy efficiency, the stuff that I teach folks to do should be done first and then the work that he does is kind of like the last piece of work that needs to be done. So through our work and how it complements we just kept conversations going and you know a working relationship built from there. With Derron, I think the first time I met Derron was when we were working on a project for the Blueprint Foundation summer camp. And it's a camp where they take black youth and they expose them to different environmental jobs and careers.  And I came in  for a week to teach folks about energy efficiency and energy auditing and different career paths into the trade. So that was where I first met Derron and thankfully he's still working with us as  board president of Inner City Collaborative. So we have sort of a cross collaboration type of working relationship between the three of us. We've collaborated on a number of different things and primarily it's because we're some of the only ones in this region with these types of backgrounds. 

Knowledge: You know, James mentioned that his work is directly connected to my work. Well, in between me not being able to find work in solar, I did work in both of their fields. I did work in energy efficiency at a  community center and I did work for the state senator on green infrastructure and stormwater management. So, I know how important both of their work is to this conversation about having a green black community and what that means. 

Kalimah: Well, what does that mean to you all? To have a green black community? To have a bling black community. [Group: lol]

Knowledge:  So, a bling green black community has to have jewelry, but the jewelry cannot be gotten from unsustainable means. We can't just get jewelry from the Democratic  Republic of Congo…

I'm sorry. Don't add that…

[Group: lol]

James:  So I think by collaborating on these different projects, bringing awareness

about what these resources and fundings can do to help people have healthier

homes, which equates to healthier communities, which equates to more generational wealth building because people can stay in their homes and they're not actually having to sell through the gentrification process.

So I think it's more about healthier homes, keeping people in their homes and creating businesses in the clean energy sector. I think that's a big part of what Kijani Collective is trying to do. 

-James Metoyer

Knowledge: Got you. So when we think about a black green community, the example that

I often give people is the nation of Wakanda in the movie Black Panther. It was the first time we seen a black technologically advanced society on film. And what I took away from that was something sort of similar to the work of a engineer named Jacque Fresco who developed something called the Venus Project. And basically what he created and what I saw in the movie Wakanda was a society that was using the newest technology that was environmentally friendly that provided the needs of the whole community. There was no poverty. There was no homelessness. There were no issues around hunger. And it provided all of the needs for its society in a sustainable way. And it was resilient to outside forces. 

And so when I look at the black community in Portland nationally and internationally, that's not our condition. Often we are impoverished. We're in places with low resources. The infrastructure is often outdated or damaged. We're impoverished and that impoverishment or that poverty leads us to social dynamics and social situations which also put us in harm's way and danger. Our lack of control of our food system and what we consume is impacted by this. Meaning we can't afford the healthiest fruits and vegetables. And so those things are factors in our overall health and the health of our community which as you can imagine your health has a part or plays a part in the social dynamics in your community. Things that make you angry, triggers you to violence and those types of things. So when you zoom out and look at all these things, they're actually byproducts of what we're not getting in our society because it was constructed not to provide those things for our community and for us in this society. So when I think about a black green community or a black green organization, I think about that entity providing these things that we need. 

We need environmental protection legally. We need laws that can be enforced. We need people who will enforce those laws. We need people from our community to decide what laws need to be written and passed because the current ones aren't doing certain things. We need control of our food. We need to be able to get healthy, affordable food without having to travel unreasonable distances or paying astronomical amounts. We need reliable energy. We need clean energy because we need clean air. We need clean transportation.

-Knowledge Murphy

So all of these things are goods as well as services that we can also provide for ourselves. So if we need clean energy, then we have the capacity to manufacture solar panels. We have the capacity to start businesses to own solar panel companies and we have the capacity to hire people within our community to install the solar panels and find black homeowners who want to pay for that service. So, it's really creating a black circular economy around the environment.

Kalimah: Who would you say is a part of Kijani? And who would you say you want to continue to bring into Kijani?

We are artists, we're educators, we're activists. We are folks that are innovators and entrepreneurs and to Knowledge's earlier point about all the work that needs to get done - We are committed to working collaboratively and across disciplines to really shift the narrative - well shift the narrative and the reality -  of who's leading and benefiting from climate solutions. 

We're people ( who want to) exchange ideas to have an overall goal of building a better community, building a more thriving community, one that's healthier, one that's more economically stable, one that has resources not only for the business owners, but like what are we doing for the kids as well? Making sure that they have a pathway to go forward in what we're creating. 

-James Metoyer

Knowledge: Kijani is made up of technicians, engineers. It's made up of community activists. It's made up of people who've been hearing about this stuff, but don't actually

know how it impacts black community black people and want to get involved in

changing how black people interact with sustainability, green or environmental related things. It's people who are involved in policy and legislation writing and see that there's a missing link between our community and policy creation or rulemaking on policies that exist.

It's black people who want a better future.

When Kijani was being created, part of that conversation was we wanted to be able to educate folks in the community to be able to go out and advocate for themselves because a lot of the times you'll have these laws or bills that'll come down and it's in legalese, if you will, language. It's really hard to decipher if you're not a lawyer. So, how do we create a group to be able to put the language in layman's terms where people can understand it? To where it’s like “yes, that affects me in my life or my family’s (life) and I can go out and advocate for (myself) and be that change that they want to see.”

-James Metoyer

Kalimah: I know you guys talked about it a little bit but whathopes do you see for the community through Kijani? How do you want  Kijani to serve the community? What do you want the outcomes to be?

Knowledge: As I mentioned, I used to work for Multnomah County and I would come across multiple studies that have been done about different quality of life measures and overwhelmingly they would always have black people at the bottom. Whether that was whoever is killed the most from vehicular homicide, who is exposed to the most air toxics or air pollution, who lives in an area with the biggest heat map or heat island effect, or urban heat island effect. Who  lives in a community where they are impacted by transportation corridors, right? And so as I began to come across these things, I realized no one is making this information easily available to the black community. It's often held or hoarded in these halls of government. And so part of my interest is that I want the black community to be aware of what's harming it so that the black community can advocate for its own protection, preservation, and long-term sustainability. And when I say sustainability, I don't mean the cute word or idea of sustainability is a metal water bottle.

Sustainability means your  availability and your ability to survive if something happens. So as we see climate change getting more and more intense, how will black communities survive the changing climate? By protecting itself. And that means protecting itself from things that it can't see. If that's invisible air pollution, the community needs to know that that invisible air pollution exists so that it can protect itself from that threat. So also we want to make sure that our community benefits economically from the just transition that is happening to switch us away from fossil fuels. And I know we're at the beginning of  a new 4-year cycle in which we have a federal administration that is not advocating for renewable energy. However, as we’ve seen during the previous administration, the opportunity and the need to to install and utilize renewable energy, not only nationally but internationally, is such a huge wealth building opportunity that we want to ensure that our community benefits economically, not only as employees, but as owners of companies.

So another thing that Kijani advocates for is the growth of black businesses in these sectors. And so when we think about, you know, a collective ecosystem, it also includes how people make their money.

You know, if we have all these needs to make our community a resilient community, and that includes clean energy, that includes high speed internet, well, we want to have companies from our community that install and provide these services for members of our community. So, it's not just the policy advocacy aspect. It's a holistic approach. We want to figure out ways to protect our community in a cylindrical or a holistic way because we have so many things that we're fighting simultaneously.

*We need solutions that think outside the box and are able to do multiple things at the same time with as little resources as possible because often we don't have any resources.

-Knowledge Murphy

Kalimah: Lastly, what would you say Kijani needs? What would be your ask?

Derron: Going back to the fact that this is a multi-disiplinary effort and to Knowledge’s point, we really need folks with different skill sets all coming together and being committed to making this work. So yes we have folks that know about policy already. Yes, we have engineers. Yes, we have educators. But the amount of work that we need to get done can't be done by just one engineer here and then one policy advocate there.

We need as many black folks that are interested in this topic joining in with us and bringing their assets. Bringing their professional backgrounds, their lived experience, we need  as many ideas on the table as possible. And so, if there are black folks out there thinking,  'that might be something that I'm interested in' - come into one of our meetings, contact you or one of the other project managers and just talk about, what they're interested in, what they can do, and how it fits with what we're doing.

And of course, to pay everybody, we need to have funds and to do things like have physical spaces where black people can gather during emergencies or just practice mindfulness and be in community.  Physical spaces cost money. And if we want those spaces to be sustainable, that also costs money. So if there are folks that have access to investors, or funders of any sort, we also want to talk to those folks. So, send them our way. 

-Derron Cole

Kalimah: Okay. Awesome, are there any last words or thoughts you want to share in regards to Kijani, your work, your hopes, dreams?

Derron:  I'll share. We recently had a  retreat and I left the retreat feeling energized. We started the retreat by talking about the state of affairs with what's happening in the country and how...

what's currently happening really highlights the importance of Kijani and the importance of us getting back to the way we were  in the 60s. You know - during the civil rights movement where even if there were disagreements in the community; and even if there were different approaches to doing advocacy, we made space because we knew that the the challenges were so big and we knew what we were up against and that we would only succeed if we closed ranks and took care of each other. Stepped forward when someone got tired or burnt out so that we could have a long-term plan and the momentum to really get us the rights and all the things that we deserve. 

Knowledge: I would include that when we think about our black community, we're also thinking about our African community;  people who immigrated from an African country as

well as our AfroCaribbean community, because when things happen, people don't

differentiate whether they're from Arkansas or Angola. And so we need to take care of

everybody and we need to assume that if the current situation politically in the United States were to exist long term, how would we ensure that we're okay and not just in this country but on this planet? However, you start where you're at.

So locally, we also want to make sure that Kijani is inclusive of members of our diaspora from the Caribbean, from Africa, from America, and come up with a global solution because the same poverty that exists in Mississippi exists in Haiti and it exists in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And all three were a byproduct of colonialism, capitalism, and the longest crimes against humanity in recorded history. So we have a special user case and we need special solutions and we need all hands on deck. So we need all types of black intelligence from all aspects of human life to create Long lasting solutions for a long lasting problem.

-Knowledge Murphy

Kalimah: James, any lasting thoughts? 

James: No, I think they said it. I think they got it. [Group: Laughs]

Kalimah: Cool, how can folks find the Kjjani Collective and get in contact? 

Derron: They could go to our website www… I don't think people even say www

anymore, do they? [Group: Laughs]

Kalimah:  I do. 

Derron: Okay.

Knowledge: https semicolon…[Group: Laughs]

Derron: They can go to www.Kijanicollective.org. 

Kalimah: All right. I think that's it. Thank You!

Derron, Knowledge and James: Thank You, thank You for facilitating...

End.