BOARD MEMBER

AJ Hudson (he/him/él) spent five years teaching high school science and eventually helped to found a public school in one of the most disenfranchised, polluted, and over-policed neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Though he faced the injustices of pollution, housing insecurity, and systemic racism throughout his own education as a low-income kid of color... it was watching the children under his daily care confront these same persistent injustices that inspired him to fight for environmental justice.

Moved to take action, he organized for NYC's BIPOC students to have access to healthy and equitable school buildings, and eventually left the classroom for law school, full-time advocacy, and a career dedicated to climate and environmental justice. He is still a teacher at heart, and his commitment to the emancipitory potential of education and BIPOC youth empowerment grounds his work. During graduate school at Yale University, AJ was the environmental justice director of the Environmental Protection Legal Clinic, and formed several new environmental partnerships between Yale's free legal aid programs and local communities.

AJ has been working and partnering with UPROSE since he first joined the family in 2018. He has organized coalitions to pass New York’s trailblazing climate legislation, helped to plan and execute the 2019 Climate Justice Youth Summit, led weekly neighborhood workshops on climate justice, as well as protests and political actions, and he is currently a member of the UPROSE Advisory Board. He is also an author of the recent Routledge Environmental Justice History textbook, and a visiting professor at the Pratt Institute.