As part of an ongoing series of interviews with community gardeners and activists, I spoke to Ena McPherson a community gardener in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. In this excerpt Ena tells us about Hattie Carthan who pioneered grassroots urban forestry and urban agriculture in her community. Hattie Carthan is one of the influences and inspirations for all community gardeners. Her work is even more relevant today as we learn how important a role trees play to mitigate the heat island effect in urban areas. Often trees are not planted as much in lower income and neighborhoods of color as they are in wealthier, white neighborhoods. Hattie Carthan did something about this inequity.