We are not fighting a losing battle,
there are so many beautiful things that we should be encouraged by.
- Majora Carter

Majora Carter

Majora Carter is an urban environmental pioneer. When asked about her responses to the ongoing economic crisis, she states that we were already in a moral crisis. Along with her other suggestions, she intimates that people have had many dormant or undeveloped skills and ideas, which are now being mobilized because there is a new urgency to respond to. She says, the tools have always been there. What resources do you have; resources that have not found expression, that have been in reserve, that you can now respond with - to help us all get through this moral and economic crisis?

From 2001 to 2008, Majora Carter she was the founder and executive director of the non-profit Sustainable South Bronx, where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the U.S.A. Carter is a MacArthur Foundation fellow and now has her own economic consulting firm. She was interviewed as part of Speaking of Faith’s ongoing series Repossessing Virtue, about the world-wide economic crisis. Carter says that many people would have agreed that morally, people should not be dying of starvation or perpetrating environmental damage, however she looked for a way to help people address these issues. Her reasoning was that if we could reframe these things as a pragmatic, economic problem and that it would be in our best economic interests to change, then people would stand up and take notice. How much more urgent are these calls now that the world economy is so rocky?

What is Carter doing differently in this economic maelstrom? She says she is trying to be much more joyful, deliberately so. She is taking time to appreciate all that we have; all that she has. That is what is going to make the work much more joyous.

Carter was told recently: a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.  She says that, in the 10 or 11 years that she had been doing urban environmental work, she has seen not just parks developed where there were former dump sites, but she has seen people’s lives changed. She has seen people coming from families that lack the understanding that they could even have jobs, come to the understanding that they can be really powerful and that the fruits of their labor can help a tree grow and help their family survive. The tools have always been there, she says, we have just not been comfortable enough and confident enough in our ability to help make things happen.

Knowing that I am not always going to be on the receiving end;
that I have something to give, and just giving it.
That is where I get my strength.
- Majora Carter

Here is Carter speaking at the Dream Reborn event: