Field Notes: Voicemail from Leila Blackbird

Leila Blackbird (Apache/Cherokee) is a former University of New Orleans student and current doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and the Pozen Center for Human Rights. She is a wife, a mother, and land protector. Leila has been involved in frontline actions for climate justice and racial equality, including the protests at Standing Rock and in response to the BP Oil Spill and the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. Separated from family in Louisiana during the pandemic while settling into her new home in Chicago, she reflects on the struggle for environmental justice and the Black Lives Matter movement in both places.

Voicemail from Leila Blackbird (Apache/Cherokee), for Ella McIntire, both University of New Orleans alum. Courtesy of Ella McIntire.