Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Evelyn Mayo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Evelyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents always put me and my sisters in uncomfortable situations. We moved almost every two years during my childhood across the world, living in France, Japan, Australia and Singapore. They always challenged us to immerse ourselves in different cultures and environments. Because of this we learned several languages and gained so many survival skills that still serve me today.

Evelyn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an urban planner and community organizer. This work has many homes for me. I teach at Paul Quinn College, a small private HBCU in Dallas Texas, where my students engage with real world urban planning and environmental justice issues, and use research to help come up with public policy solutions. I also am Co-Chair of the Board of Downwinders at Risk, a grassroots environmental justice non profit that has been holding polluters and politicians accountable for almost 30 years. We work with Black, Brown, and low income neighborhoods to address long standing civil rights issues connected to environmental racism. Finally, I am the co-founder of RAYO Planning, a nonprofit urban planning organization. We are a BIPOC women-led organization that seeks to close the health, wealth and opportunity gap that exists because of racist land use policies and practices.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky is sort of the organizing bible. So much about strategy, tactics, how to win and how to reckon with power I have learnt from that book.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met Jennifer Rangel, one of the Co-Founders of RAYO Planning at a community meeting in the Tenth Street Historic Freedman Town. She was newly hired by the Inclusive Communities Project, a fair housing non-profit, and I had been working with Legal Aid of NW Texas for a few years. We met and immediately clicked! I met Jim Schermbeck, the Director of Downwinders at Risk, after moving to Texas from NYC in 2017. My sister had just participated in this first “College of Constructive Hell-Raising” community organizing course run by Downwinders.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.downwindersatrisk.org/
• Instagram: @downwinders.at.risk
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelyn-mayo-aicp-07637694/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/home