Compost, Cotton & Cornrows

Dominique Drakeford
  • 5.0 (12)
  • SOCIEDAD Y CULTURA
  • CADA DOS SEMANAS

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is a podcast centering Black sustainability leaders across fashion, agriculture, wellbeing and beyond. Through storytelling, culture, and climate conversations, the show explores how ancestral wisdom and modern practices can cultivate regenerative futures. Hosted by Dominique Drakeford, each episode unearths powerful insights that shift the narrative of environmental justice.

  1. HACE 6 DÍAS

    Episode 44 | World-Renowned Climate Expert Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd Breaks Down Resiliency, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Community Co-Creation and the "Kitchen Table" Realities of Climate Change

    In this expansive and grounding episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in powerful conversation with Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, a globally recognized climate scientist, former president of the American Meteorological Society, and one of the most trusted voices translating atmospheric science into everyday life. From his early days at NASA to advising national and global leaders, Dr. Shepherd brings both rigor and realness by breaking down climate change not as an abstract future crisis, but as a present-day force shaping everything from grocery bills to public health. With clarity and urgency, he reframes sustainability through the lens of resilience. He understands how wealth gaps define who survives and who is left vulnerable in a rapidly shifting climate. Together, they move beyond surface-level solutions and into the systems that actually shape our realities, naming the deep inequities driving climate vulnerability while refusing to stay in despair. Dr. Shepherd introduces his “kitchen table” framework, connecting extreme weather to daily life, and offers a blueprint for meaningful engagement rooted in policy, community co-creation and trust-building. From urban heat islands shaped by redlining to the rise of compound disasters, this conversation bridges science, culture and lived experience. As Dr. Shepherd makes clear, we don’t have another planet to figure this out on. And so the work ahead demands both accountability and collective action, grounded in truth and designed for survival. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    53 min

  2. 22 ABR

    Episode 43 | No Flowers, No Food | Dee Hall Goodwin on Teaching Climate Through Flowers, Building Black Flower Farmers & Beautifully Disrupting an Aesthetic Industry

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford is in a rich and grounding conversation with floral designer, horticulturalist  and agricultural leader Dee Hall Goodwin. She is the founder of Mermaid City Flowers and the global network Black Flower Farmers. Living in Norfolk, Virginia, with roots in Brooklyn and St. Lucia, Dee invites us into a world where flowers are portals into climate awareness, cultural memory and regenerative possibility. From transforming her front lawn into a micro flower farm to source wedding flowers to rejecting the extractive global flower industry, Dee redefines what it means to live sustainably with softness and power. Together, they explore the intersections of Black land stewardship, coastal climate realities and the radical act of growing what you need, from basil in your bouquet or community across continents. Dee shares how flowers become a “medium, not the message,” offering an accessible entry point into deeper environmental truths, while honoring ancestral practices that have always existed beyond the language of “sustainability.” As a Black floral farmer, this episode is a reminder that the practice is expansive. https://www.mermaidcityflowers.com/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    50 min

  3. 15 ABR

    Reflection Moment | PODCAST SPRING BREAK ANNOUNCEMENT

    CCC is on a two-week Spring Break  Use this time to tap into past episodes, share your favorites and stay connected to the community. We’ll be back next week continuing Season 2 with more depth and necessary cultural climate conversations. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    1 min

  4. 1 ABR

    Episode 42 | Serge Attukwei Clottey is a Ghana-based global artist weaving plastic waste to unpack migration, expose global systems and build community while advancing environmental justice.

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in a powerful conversation with Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, the visionary behind Afrogallonism - a radical artistic practice transforming discarded yellow oil containers into monumental sculptures, performances, and communal rituals. Living and working in Accra, Ghana, Clottey unpacks how these everyday objects, once used to transport cooking oil from the West and later repurposed to store scarce drinking water, carry layered stories of migration, global trade, environmental degradation and survival. Through cutting, stitching, weaving, and performance, he reveals how materials dismissed as waste become cultural archives, documenting the afterlife of globalization on the African continent. But Clottey’s work extends far beyond the gallery. Rooted deeply in the community, his practice has evolved into a living ecosystem where elders stitch, youth source materials, and entire neighborhoods participate in transforming plastic waste into art, architecture, clothing, and storytelling. What began as an artist’s intervention has become a collective act of environmental education, economic participation, and cultural reclamation. Together, Dominique and Serge explore sustainability as responsibility, the politics of global waste economies, and how tradition—from weaving to ceremonial performance can inspire contemporary solutions for a planet struggling under the weight of its own consumption. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    41 min

  5. 25 MAR

    Episode 41 | Meteorologist Alesha Ray is Making Climate Make Sense - From Data to Daily Life

    Episode 41 | In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with meteorologist and climate storyteller Alesha Ray, whose journey from journalism to national broadcast weather reframes environmentalism through a lens that is both scientifically rigorous and deeply human. Together, they unpack the power of meeting people where they are, redefining sustainability beyond perfection, and challenging the narratives that make climate action feel inaccessible to the very communities most impacted. As Alesha shares, “sustainability is meeting people where they are… being resourceful, knowing what you need, and utilizing what you have to make a difference.” From rising heat as a public health crisis to the emotional weight of climate anxiety, this conversation moves through the urgency of now while holding space for color, joy, creativity, cultural expression and of course thrifting. Dominique and Alesha explore sustainable fashion as a practice of ingenuity, the necessity of representation in science and media, and the role of storytelling in translating complex climate data into something people can actually feel, understand and act on. Also Alesha speaks about the evolution of her educational offerings merging science with accessible and stylish storytelling!  Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    47 min

  6. 18 MAR

    Episode 40 | Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso: Sustainability Begins at Birth: A $45M Investment in Maternal Health, Environmental Racism & Brooklyn’s First Data-Driven Comprehensive Plan

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows podcast, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn’s 20th Borough President and the first Dominican to hold the office in New York City history. Raised in Williamsburg by Dominican immigrants who arrived seeking opportunity, Reynoso reflects on growing up in a neighborhood shaped by poverty, environmental injustice and public health disparities including asthma rates so severe that Woodhull Hospital built one of the city’s only emergency asthma units. From these early experiences, Reynoso developed a deeply human definition of sustainability that rooted in the everyday question: How do we manage the systems we cannot avoid: waste, infrastructure, industry, in ways that protect both people and planet? Together, Dominique and Reynoso explore sustainability through the lens of birthing justice, public health, and environmental equity. Reynoso shares how Brooklyn’s maternal health crisis, where Black women are up to twelve times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts, became a defining focus of his administration, leading him to invest $45 million into transformative maternal health units across Brooklyn’s public hospitals. The conversation also examines the structural forces shaping health outcomes across Central Brooklyn from food deserts and heat index disparities to underfunded parks and the erosion of the public healthcare system. Bridging data-driven governance with lived experience, Reynoso outlines his ambitious comprehensive planning framework for Brooklyn while calling on residents to participate in shaping their neighborhoods through civic engagement. At its core, this episode asks a powerful question: What does sustainability look like when we begin at birth and build systems that allow communities to thrive across generations? https://www.brooklynbp.nyc.gov/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    52 min

  7. 11 MAR

    Episode 39 | Sustaining Us: Diamond Spratling, Detroit Roots & the Rise of Climate Sisterhood

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with Diamond Spratling, MPH, award-winning Climate DisruptHER, two-time TEDx speaker and founder of Girl Plus Environment, a nonprofit mobilizing Black and Brown women at the forefront of climate solutions. Raised in Detroit, Diamond traces how her childhood—playing in neighborhood green spaces while her family navigated the realities of industrial pollution tied to the auto industry shaped her understanding of sustainability as something far deeper than environmentalism. For Diamond, sustainability means sustaining culture, sustaining community, and carrying ancestral practices forward a living commitment to protecting both people and planet across generations. Together, Dominique and Diamond unpack the intersection of public health, environmental racism, and economic opportunity from the legacy of pollution in Detroit to the rising threats of data centers, energy burden, and water insecurity across the South. Diamond shares how she built Girl Plus Environment into a powerful sisterhood of over 700 members, proving that Black and Brown women have always cared for the environment even if traditional environmental spaces failed to see them. The conversation also explores the importance of joy, rest, and storytelling in sustaining movements, including Diamond’s children’s book series Sage Sails the World, which inspires young readers to approach climate action with curiosity, hope, and cultural pride. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    52 min

  8. 4 MAR

    Episode 38 | Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Haitian Moringa & Castor Oil Built a School, a Farm & a Vertical Beauty Blueprint in Brooklyn

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in rich conversation with Fredeline “Freddie” Amedee-Benjamin, co-owner of Papa Rozier Farms, a vertically integrated farm-to-store ecosystem rooted in Haiti What began as a mission to sustain Bati School evolved into a 50-acre regenerative farm producing cold-pressed castor and moringa oils that are grown, harvested, pressed, bottled and sold without a middleman in Brooklyn. “We are essentially the farmer and the producer,” Freddie shares. “I can tell you where it came from and how it came to be in your bottle.” Together, they unpack sustainability as the ability to self-sustain and to build something that protects and provides for itself no matter what the world is doing while also challenging the global narrative that reduces Haiti to crisis instead of creativity, ingenuity and legacy. This conversation is about memory, power and refusing to follow trends that simply circle us back to what our ancestors already knew. From Haiti’s revolutionary roots in 1804 to uplifting women through education and employment (Bati School is 85% women-led), Freddie reminds us that sustainability is cultural. Castor and moringa are not new, but instead  are ancestral technologies, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and anti-trend. This is a story about building institutions that outlive headlines, raising daughters who show up unapologetically and proving that when you put enough energy into something, it becomes unavoidable. CAN’T STOP! WON’T STOP!  https://paparozierfarms.com/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    41 min
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Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is a podcast centering Black sustainability leaders across fashion, agriculture, wellbeing and beyond. Through storytelling, culture, and climate conversations, the show explores how ancestral wisdom and modern practices can cultivate regenerative futures. Hosted by Dominique Drakeford, each episode unearths powerful insights that shift the narrative of environmental justice.

Información

  • Creador
    Dominique Drakeford
  • Años de actividad
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodios
    47
  • Clasificación
    Apto
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Compost, Cotton & Cornrows
  • Mostrar sitio web
    Compost, Cotton & Cornrows

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