Majora Carter believes you shouldn’t have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one, and that this notion has environmental and economic implications that span the globe. She was born, raised, and continues to live and work in the South Bronx. In 2001, after the defeat of a noxious, Giuliani-era municipal waste-handling scheme, she founded the nonprofit environmental justice solutions corporation Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx). Her first major project was writing a $1.25 million federal transportation planning grant for the South Bronx Greenway with 11 miles of alternative transport, local economic development, low-impact storm water management, and recreational space. This led to the first new South Bronx waterfront park in more than 60 years. While needed parks are highly visible manifestations of her work, the real focus is creating a robust horticultural infrastructure such as intensive urban forestation, green roofing/walls, and water-permeable open spaces. These green mechanisms clean the air, reduce urban heat island effect, efficiently manage storm water runoff, calm the soul, and create local jobs — reducing poverty.

"If power plants, waste handling, chemical plants and transport systems were located in wealthy areas as quickly and easily as in poor areas, we would have had a clean, green economy decades ago." — Majora Carter, Power Shift 2007

In 2003, SSBx started the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training program (BEST), one of the nation’s first urban green-collar job training and placement systems. After four years, it boasts an 85 percent employment rate with 10 percent now in college. Many of these success stories were formerly incarcerated, and all of them were on some form of public assistance before the 10-week course. Carter’s solutions to local and global environmental problems rest on poverty alleviation through green economic development, because the local jobs they create can empower communities to resist bad environmental decisions by some shortsighted "leaders."

In 2007, she and Van Jones co-founded Green For All to advocate for a national green-collar job agenda. She is a MacArthur "genius", one of Essence magazine's "25 most influential African-Americans" for 2007, co-host of The Green on the Sundance Channel, and host of public radio series The Promised Land for 2008 release.

Carter has been featured in publications including Ebony, Newsweek, New York Magazine, USA Today, and Essence. She is also an in-demand speaker worldwide.

Carter welcomes you to The Promised Land in this video:

Listen to The Promised Land and tell us what you think!

Additional links:

Majora's bio on the Sustainable South Bronx site

Majora’s bio on The Green Web site

Majora explains her commitment to environmental justice and her vision for a renewed South Bronx during TED Conference (recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA)