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Fresh off a hometown visit to Cleveland, Colleen brings us the story of the Cuyahoga: a river once so polluted with industrial sludge, it burned. At least thirteen times. While the largest and most damaging conflagration occurred in 1952, it was the 1969 river fire that made national headlines, thanks to Mayor Carl Stokes. As one of the first Black mayors of a major American city, the charismatic and media-savvy Stokes connected the dots between economic inequality and environmental degradation, and advocated on the national stage for legislation that would clean up the \\u201curban environment,\\u201d starting with the Cuyahoga and Lake Erie. Today, the pristine Cuyahoga is a symbol of pride for Clevelanders, yet this civic success story belies the reality of ongoing inequality there. Colleen shares her personal history of growing up in \\u201ca city with no superlatives,\\u201d her own chance connection to Stokes, and how she\\u2019s begun parsing the difference between \\u201cenvironmentalism\\u201d and \\u201cenvironmental justice.\\u201d

Also, Leah shares an update on the so-called Mystery Seeds from China.

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Mentioned in this episode:

\\u201cThe Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds\\u201d by Chris Heath (The Atlantic, 7/15/21); Burning River Pale Ale; The Good Time III boat; The Mayor and The People: Carl B Stokes (album by Oliver Nelson); \\u201cCarl B. Stokes and the 1969 River Fire\\u201d (National Parks Service); \\u201cThe Cities: The Price of Optimism\\u201d (Time, 8/1/69), \\u201cThe Myth of the Cuyahoga River Fire\\u201d (Distillations Podcast, Science History Institute); \\u201cBringing Back Trees to \\u2018Forest City\\u2019s Redlined Areas to Help Residents and the Climate\\u201d (NPR, 6/23/21).