July 25, 2007

By Claudia Capos

Majora Carter, the founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, a grassroots organization dedicated to urban revitalization in the nation's poorest community, will be the featured speaker on Jan. 15 at the School of Natural Resources and Environment during its annual observance of Martin Luther King Day.

The environmental-justice activist and MacArthur Fellow will deliver her formal remarks, "Environmental Justice: Civil Rights for the 21st Century," at 5 p.m. in room 1040 of the Dana Building. The event is cosponsored by the School of Natural Resources and Environment, the School of Social Work, and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.

Carter, a lifelong resident of the South Bronx, has devoted her career to the pursuit of environmentally sustainable "green" methods for improving the quality of life in her environmentally challenged community where 35 percent of the predominantly Latino and African-American residents live below the poverty level. "Ms. Carter tackles persistent urban problems of poverty, public health and the need for clean energy by creating beautiful physical environments using green technology," says Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment. "Many urban areas could benefit from similar transformations."

Her heroic efforts to combat deadly pollution through innovative, economically sustainable projects have catapulted her to the forefront of the environmental-justice movement and earned her national recognition as a civil-rights visionary. In 2005, Carter won a "genius" award and a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for her lifetime achievements and future potential as an "urban revitalization strategist." In 2006, she was invited to appear as a featured panelist on the anti-poverty working group at the Clinton Global Initiative.

"The principles of environmental and social justice infuse everything we do—in teaching, research and service," adds Bierbaum. "It is a privilege for us, the School of Social Work and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies to bring this able and inspiring practitioner to campus."

Carter, who currently lives across the street from the house in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx where she was born and raised, graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1984, earned her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in 1988 and received her master's degree in fine arts from New York University in 1997. From 1997 to 2001, she served as project director and associate director of community restoration at The Point Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to youth development and cultural and economic revitalization of Hunts Point.

In 2001, she founded Sustainable South Bronx, which has worked to find solutions to urban public-health and economic problems, and global climate change-related issues, by beautifying the physical surroundings of low-income neighborhoods and demonstrating new environmentally sustainable technologies.

Carter wrote a $1.25 million federal grant to conduct a feasibility study for the South Bronx Greenway, a community-led initiative to create a bicycle-and-pedestrian greenway along the South Bronx River. The master plan for the project, which would provide needed open space, waterfront access and economic development for residents, has been approved by the city of New York, and $28 million in funding has been secured. Thus far, two new parks have been built and opened, and construction of the Greenway is slated to begin this spring.

Sustainable South Bronx also has established the first green-and-cool-roofs demonstration project in New York and has implemented the Bronx Environmental Stewardship training program to create a skilled "green-collar" workforce with both a personal and economic stake in the community.

Carter has helped to design and/or sponsor other "green" initiatives, including the Hunts Point Community Composting Project, the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance and Greening for Breathing. She has been featured on National Public Radio and in articles appearing in the New York Times, the Village Voice, Essence, JET and other publications.