September All-In Call with Special Guest Justin Pearson

Justin Pearson

Pearson began his work in politics by founding Memphis Community Against Pollution, a grassroots environmental justice organization that defeated a proposal to build an oil pipeline designed to carry up to 420,000 barrels of oil a day through predominately Black Memphis neighborhoods. As a state representative, Pearson continues to fight polluting fossil fuel projects in his historically Black district, including Elon Musk’s X AI data center. Just three miles from Pearson’s home, it’s the world’s largest AI supercomputer data center, with 35 gas turbines spewing cancer-causing chemicals and climate pollution.

Pearson rose to national prominence in 2023, when Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers expelled him from office for demanding stronger gun safety protections in the wake of a mass shooting. Afterwards, he was reinstated and won a special election for his seat with 94% of the vote in his district. His campaign for Congress has been endorsed by progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Working Families Party, and Indivisible.

Bill McKibben, co-founder of Third Act

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written more than twenty books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, and his latest book is Here Comes The Sun.

Akaya Windwood, Third Act Lead Advisor

Akaya facilitates transformation. She advises, trains, and consults on how change happens individually, organizationally, and societally. She is on faculty for the Just Economy Institute, and is founder of the New Universal, which centers human wisdom in the wisdom of brown womxn. She was President of Rockwood Leadership Institute for many years, and directs the Thriving Roots Fund, which supports young womxn’s finance and philanthropic learning and leadership based in generosity and interconnectedness. She received the 2020 Vision Award from Middlebury College and was one of Conscious Company’s 30 World Changing Women of 2018. She is an Ella Award recipient from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and served on the Alameda County Human Rights Commission. Akaya is deeply committed to working for a fair and equitable global society while infusing a sense of purpose, delight, and wonder into everything we do.

Pat Almonrode, Third Act Lawyers

After a middling career as a visual artist, Pat Almonrode went to law school in his 40s and is now an attorney in private practice. His legal work focuses on the False Claims Act, representing private whistleblowers who sue on behalf of the government to stop others from overbilling or otherwise cheating the government (for instance, care providers overbilling Medicare and Medicaid). He’s been a climate activist since 2009, when he joined 350NYC. He lives in Manhattan and is presently involved in both the Lawyers and the NYC Working Groups – and proudly notes that he was arrested five times during 2025’s Summer of Heat in NYC.