How Atlanta-based leaders are bringing diversity to environmental justice

As part of the 404ward series, UATL is recognizing four Atlanta-area leaders that are using their creativity, innovation and voice on the front lines of sustainability and environmental justice.

Diamond Spratling

Founder/CEO, Girl Plus Environment

Diamond Spratling concentrates on using creativity and interaction to get communities of color engaged in protecting the environment.

In February 2019, the Detroit native turned her frustrations from seeing how pollution from automobile factories created health problems in her family into Girl Plus Environment. The nonprofit organization that empowers and encourages Black and brown girls and nonbinary individuals to get involved in climate and environmental justice. The organization hosts nature hikes, yoga sessions, training programs to develop energy policy leaders and workshops on using social media as digital activism among others.

In December 2024, Spratling published “Sage Sails the World: A Little Girl’s Journey Across the Arctic,” her first children’s storybook about a young girl who travels to places her grandmother told her about that are affected by environmental issues.

“The center of our work is joy, fun and provide ways for people to create community in a way that’s not going to push them away or scare them from an issue. I wanted to normalize those conversations and see more youth get engaged in climate and environmental issues from a young age,” Spratling said.

“Atlanta has that capability to make environmental discussions innovative, inviting and culturally driven, because traditional environmental organizations have failed at that.”

Credit: Reesa Shayne

Credit: Reesa Shayne

Reesa Shayne

Children’s Book Author

Acworth-based children’s book author Reesa Shayne tells educational stories that uplift and help kids memorize how embracing nature can improve their quality of life.

The Stamford, Connecticut, native, who moved to metro Atlanta in 2012, authored 2024’s “I Breathe For Me,” a picture book with colorful illustrations and rhymes about taking deep breaths and having quiet time outside to help build inner strength. The book includes daily breathing exercises for parents and kids to do together.

Earlier this month, Shayne read the book as part of Storybook Garden, a reading time activity for kids on the green trail outside of Louise Watley Library at Southeast Atlanta.

In 2021, she released “When We All Wear a Mask,” which explained to kids how to be safe through social distancing and wearing a facial mask during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shayne hopes to use storytelling to encourage youth to embrace nature and take pauses as natural healing sources.

“Books are a refuge and safe space that makes difficult concepts fun, and I wanted children to understand that breathing is a tool for their own healing,” Shayne said.

“It gives people the opportunity to take a book and go sit outside. In our communities, we don’t necessarily encourage kids to explore different ways of managing their emotions and feelings. The goal is to show Black children that they belong in all spaces, deserve all the joy, good things in life and to believe in themselves.”

Credit: Melissa Ellis

Credit: Melissa Ellis

Melissa Ellis

Founder/CEO, Life Beyond Water Global Outreach

Community organizer Melissa Ellis works to ensure having access to clean water is a basic human right for everyone.

In 2017, the Michigan native started Life Beyond Water Global Outreach, a Stockbridge-based nonprofit organization that provides clean water to underserved communities.

In 2021, she teamed with churches and community nonprofits to distribute supplies, donate bottles of clean drinking water and water filters to people in Michigan, in Flint, and in Jackson a year later. The charity had underground freshwater wells installed in Uganda and Ghana last year.

Life Beyond Water hosts STEM camps and workshops for kids. She regularly travels to distributes water and additional relief to areas affected by natural disasters.

A former registered nurse, Ellis started the nonprofit after taking a mission trip to Haiti and witnessing the citizens’ unsanitary living conditions firsthand. “I saw people drinking water that I didn’t even want to stand in. It was haunting, and I knew there had to be a better way,” Ellis said.

“Water is not just something that we drink, comes out of a faucet or we wash with, so we’re connecting people to the most fundamental element that we have. We present water as an element and an opportunity that can take you places. This is my heart’s work, and I’m just keeping my head down and doing what I’ve been called to do.”

Credit: AJC File Photo

Credit: AJC File Photo

Lonnie Johnson

Inventor and engineer

For 27 years, inventor and engineer Lonnie Johnson has been committed to developing renewable energy technology and paying his expertise forward to the next generation of engineers.

Johnson, who relocated to Atlanta in 1990 from Pasadena, California, after he invented the Super Soaker water gun, developed the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter, which turns heat into electricity, with a team of 40 scientists and engineers. In 1998, he began working on an all-solid-state battery that is now carried under his company, Johnson Energy Storage, that can power electric vehicles and hold twice as much energy as lithium-ion batteries.

The former NASA and Air Force staffer’s mission is to reduce society’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Twenty years ago, he formed the Johnson Stem Activity Center, an innovation lab in downtown Atlanta that develops young engineers, scientists and future innovators. Johnson, who’s responsible for 140 patents, said longevity and success in STEM take perseverance.

“I wanted to create jobs and put people to work, which is true economic development. Technology took a lot longer and harder than I anticipated, and I’ve had trouble getting people interested in some of my ideas, but we haven’t given up,” Johnson said.

“Energy makes everything happen, and I feel like I’ve arrived.”

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