"I started reading Red Cross papers and FEMA paperwork, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m a lawyer and I can’t understand this stuff. How can regular folks understand what they’re signing? And they were signing their life away. They were signing their property. They were signing, you know, to receive dollars that then got them into lawsuits with the federal government because they didn’t spend them the right way. You know, no one’s telling them what to do, they’re just telling them to sign the paperwork. And this got to understanding what happens when you don’t invest in your education system, what happens when the rest of the nation allows for the South’s education system to go to those low levels. It means, in disaster, people don’t understand the paperwork that they’re signing or the implications behind them. And oh, by the way, neither did the lawyer. Like, I had to like, break that stuff down and read it, too."
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Lawyers from the United StatesHuman rights activistsWomen activists from the United StatesWomen in lawClimate change activists
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Colette Pichon Battle
Colette Pichon Battle is a climate activist and lawyer, who founded the climate justice and human rights center The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy. She was a TED speaker, and a 2019 Obama Foundation fellow. She is best known for advocating for the needs of communities of color in the face of the Climate crisis in the Gulf Coast of the United States.
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