Mikhail Martin

Mikhail Martin is a software engineer and co-founder of Brothers of Climbing. When Martin and his crew realized how few people of color there were in the climbing community, they decided to do something about it. Enter Brothers of Climbing, an organization dedicated to bringing diversity to the rock climbing community. Now Martin and his growing crew are helping make climbing a sport for everyone.

Martin is a willing leader with a programmer’s articulation for simple clarity and a Caribbean easy-goingness. After getting into climbing, he realized the lack of diversity makes young people of color believe there is no place for them in the sport. He said, “I literally typed, ‘Are there black climbers?’ in Google... and someone said, ‘black people don’t climb.'” Martin's activism work focuses on outreach to communities with no access to climbing and creating an inclusive culture within the community so POC can feel safe and accepted.

Martin is the co-organizer of The Color the Crag Climbing Festival, an event held in collaboration with Brown Girls Climb. The mission of the event is to increase the presence of people of color outside, encourage community and leadership, and provide positive representation of climbing and physical activity among populations of color. At the yearly festival most of the attendees are climbing outside for the first time. Martin is one of the change makers bringing climbing into a new more inclusive era.