Keynote Address

Coalitions for Justice: Dismantling the Root Causes of Disaster and Reconstructing Resilience

Jo Banner, Founder and Director of The Descendants Project

Monday, June 15, 9:15 to 10:00 a.m. MDT
Location: Interlocken A/B

For vulnerable communities like those in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, failing infrastructure, scarce healthcare, and persistent, toxic pollution are not just post-disaster challenges; they are daily realities. While grassroots resistance efforts often focus on helping these communities hold the line against further environmental degradation, what happens when that line is literally and figuratively underwater?

This keynote address will explore how coalitions led by fenceline communities are working to reconstruct resilience, shifting from simply enduring hardship to actively raising the bar for economic, environmental, and social justice. By working together, we can move beyond merely surviving disasters toward remedying their root causes and weaving collective well-being into every aspect of community life.

Jo Banner

Jo Banner is the founder and director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit she co-founded with her twin sister, Joy Banner, in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications, she uses her education to honor the legacy of enslaved people while defending descendant communities. Living in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, Banner is a fierce advocate for environmental justice, working to eliminate pollution from grain to petrochemicals. She represents frontline communities in global spaces like the United Nation’s Plastics Pollution Treaty, highlighting the health toll of plastic production on Black communities and other fenceline residents. Banner’s mission includes preserving the burial grounds of the enslaved and protecting the last 11 miles untouched by industrial development in Cancer Alley. Through her work, she envisions a just transition for people and land to achieve economic and environmental liberation.