Attacking poverty via green endeavors
The crowd was heavily young and African-American and the tone evangelical as The Dream Reborn Conference -- an effort to blend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision with the environment and economy -- opened Friday at Memphis Cook Convention Center.
The crowd was heavily young and African-American and the tone evangelical as The Dream Reborn Conference -- an effort to blend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision with the environment and economy -- opened Friday at Memphis Cook Convention Center.
"Environmental justice is civil rights in the 21st century," said Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, an agency aimed at creating "green" development in that part of New York.
Van Jones, founder of Green for All, which put together the three-day conference, said attacking poverty through green endeavors would have been one of King's objectives if he had lived.
Speaking to about 1,000 people at the opening ceremony, Jones called Carter the Rosa Parks of the South Bronx, referring to the Montgomery, Ala., civil rights icon who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955.
