Hi! I’m Manola Secaira, a reporter for CapRadio, the NPR station in Sacramento. Years ago, I was part of the group of journalists who came together to discuss what would later become the Uproot Project. That summer of 2019, when those conversations began, wasn’t so long ago. But going to the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Philadelphia this year—with the help of a diversity fellowship offered in part by Uproot—I got to see just how much has changed firsthand. 

But let’s rewind real quick. In 2019, I attended my first-ever SEJ conference in Colorado. It was also the first year that Uproot hosted a meetup at the conference. It was an informal gathering over a meal with about a dozen people squeezing their chairs together at a small round table in a university mess hall. The agenda was light; we talked about our hopes for the Uproot Project and what it could mean for environmental journalists of color to have a space to collaborate. Some of the people who attended had only learned what the Uproot Project was that day. Others knew nothing and came out of curiosity after seeing the meetup pop up on their agenda. 

Beyond our meetup bubble, it didn’t take much to notice that most of the conference attendees were white. It mirrored what I saw in my day-to-day life as a journalist, where most of the environmental reporters who I saw celebrated in the field were white too. When I spoke to fellow journalists of color who’d attended SEJ conferences before 2019, they told me that topics like “environmental justice” were usually relegated to one or two panels, if they were mentioned at all. 

But this year felt different. I was struck by the number of journalists of color I not only saw walking the hallways and attending panels, but also up front as the moderators and panelists themselves. At Uproot’s meetup, it was much more than that cramped table in a mess hall. We had a whole room full. Many of those in attendance were people I’d known for years but many more were journalists I’d never met before — some, like me, were only able to attend thanks to the fellowship that SEJ and Uproot had partnered to offer. 

This time, the meetup felt like a celebration — of our collective power, of the stories we’d told with the help and support of other Uprooters, of the mere fact of our existence. And we’re only just getting started.