Grad student found a passion for environmental justice at Divinity School
This story is part of a series of graduate profiles ahead of Commencement ceremonies. For Aliyah Collins, the road to finding her calling for environmental justice started in her hometown of Jackson, Tennessee, passed through Chicago, with a stop in Ghana, and then to Cambridge, Mass. It started in the garden of her grandmother, Carolyn Faye Ozier, who grew herbs, flowers, and other plants in the front yard of her house, not far from her granddaughter’s. As a child, Collins hung around Ozier’s porch to enjoy family gatherings and the beauty of the garden, where the sight of pink four o’clock flowers that bloom in the afternoon always made her smile. Collins, who dreamed of basketball stardom back then, was too busy putting in time on the court to do any gardening, but now she recognizes that the seeds of her ideas about the power of nature were planted then and there. They would ultimately...