How are Black fathers navigating their own postpartum depression in a world that rarely gives them space to feel? In this deeply moving episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique sits down with Dallas-based advocate, father and founder of Daddy Stroller Social Club, Kalvin Bridgewater, for an honest conversation about Black fatherhood, emotional wellness and redefining masculinity through care. From becoming certified as a doula to support his wife during a home birth, to navigating postpartum depression as a new father, Kalvin opens up about grief, vulnerability, generational healing and the urgent need for safe spaces where men can tell the truth about what they’re carrying.

Together, they explore how intentional community can become pathways toward collective healing. Kalvin shares how Daddy Stroller Social Club is helping fathers build deeper relationships with themselves, their children and their partners through honest dialogue, journaling, movement, outdoor experiences and mutual support. From touching leaves during moments of overwhelm to watching fathers openly express love, this episode is a powerful reflection on what happens when Black men are creating their own spaces to show up fully for their families and themselves.

https://daddystrollersocialclub.com/

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!

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What does it mean to build an independent luxury brand rooted in restoration instead of extraction? This week on Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits down with Tammuz Davis, founder of COVE - a London-based vintage jewelry brand transforming forgotten archival pieces into modern statements of individuality, sustainability and cultural memory. Together, they unpack the environmental cost of overproduction, the emotional and cultural significance of jewelry in Black communities and why slowing down may be one of the most radical acts of resistance in today’s hyper-consumer culture.

From growing up wearing hand-me-downs to building a brand backed by integrity instead of endless growth, Tammuz shares an honest reflection on anxiety, entrepreneurship, rejection and choosing purpose over capitalism’s obsession with scale. This conversation moves beyond fashion trends and into deeper questions around identity, value, aspiration and what it really means to consume consciously in a world drowning in excess.

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!

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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!

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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

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

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

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!

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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