>> hinojosa: she is a leader of the green movement who's worked tirelessly to bring green spaces and green jobs to the inner city. social justice and environmental activist majora carter. i'm maria hinojosa, this is one on one. majora carter, welcome to our program. >> thank you for having me. >> hinojosa: so okay, you are a genius, award winning... important to say straight up at the front. i know, you're like, "no, no, no!" you are a woman of the south bronx. >> yes. >> hinojosa: and when people think of the south bronx, they think of blown out buildings,

fire, garbage, pollution. when you look at the south bronx, you see what? >> possibility, promise, some of the world's most beautiful people... >> hinojosa: hmm! >> ...all sorts of assets that are just waiting to be developed and recognized as such. >> hinojosa: but when you were growing up in the south bronx... >> uh! >> hinojosa: ...one of ten kids, okay? >> ( laughing ) yeah. >> hinojosa: what were you seeing around you? >> i was seeing, you know, the burned-out shells of buildings. i did see, you know, crack heads who lived across the street from me in a burned out shell. i did see my neighborhood played out larger than life on television about being, like, the worst place in the world and nothing good could come of it, because that's where crime and prostitution and all these awful things were, and so that's what i saw, you know, as a kid. >> hinojosa: what does that do to a kid? >> ( sighs deeply ) >> hinojosa: i mean, profoundly, what does it do to you when you, every day to get to school, you've got to walk by the crack

addicts, and the garbage that's not collected, and the broken sidewalks, and the... >> it makes you feel as though there's something wrong with you, just inherently. like, you know, god wouldn't have allowed you to be born here unless there was something wrong with you, and i spent a lot of my early years, you know, trying to figure out, "how am i going to get out of this place?" and for me, it was education. and once i did, you know, i went to the bronx high school of science and then later on to wesleyan university, education was it. and i spent a lot of time trying to completely disassociate myself from my own roots. >> hinojosa: what did that look like for you? what... you know, when you try... >> ( laughing ) >> hinojosa: ...you know, "where are you from?" "well, i'm from northern manhattan." >> ( laughing ) no, i... i would say, "well, i'm from new york," and try to change the subject. and then they go, "but where?" you know? and i'd say, "well, it's in the bronx. it's really close to manhattan. ( laughing ) i was so bad! and you know, god forbid, you know, if i was pushed far enough

and it was clear that i was from the south bronx, and... because often, people were not kind-- they weren't. like, i remember hearing stuff, like, when i... gosh, my 11th grade high school studies class-- you know, mister... i won't say his name-- but anyway, you know, like, basically making these jokes about the south bronx. >> hinojosa: wow. >> and i was just like... and i was an "a" student in his class, and still could not bring myself to defend or support... i mean, i didn't... i didn't have it in me to do that. >> hinojosa: because... did you really like the south bronx? >> no, i hated it too. i just didn't want, you know, folks to... i didn't want it associated with me, but i also didn't want to hear it, either. so... but it was... it was definitely a tough thing. >> hinojosa: and you were not an activist when you... i mean, there were a lot of activists in the south bronx. that was not you. >> no, i was... i was acting my way to get out. that was my path. >> hinojosa: and when you would see these activists saying, you know, "protect the south bronx, clean it up, do something," as a

kid, what were... >> as a kid, i honestly didn't see that many of them, because i guess it was just like an older generation that did that, but as i got older, you know, it was just sort of like, "there's nothing here to protect. there's nothing here; i mean, i'm out of here. like, if anybody with a brain should go," and that's the way that i felt. >> hinojosa: and then what ends up happening is you go to college; you do, you get away, you go to wesleyan, you come back, you're living at home. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: you were supposed to be far away from the south bronx; you end up coming back home. >> yeah, i only came home, you know, because i was broke, literally. i started graduate school and i had no money; like, my program was that tough. it was english with a concentration in creative writing, and the only place that i could afford was my parent's... an extra bedroom in my parent's house. and i stayed there for two years, like, literally, and all i did was go from my house to the subway. you know, it's like i knew nothing about the neighborhood; i didn't care. and it wasn't until i actually got a part-time job working at a

local community development corporation up the street, and just kind of got to know my neighborhood a little bit more. i, like, discovered that there were, like, artists there. there were people who did really cool things, and, like, loved themselves and loved each other, and i was like, "oh, my gosh... this... there... this is my neighborhood. how did i not see that before?" and then the thing that really kept me there, though, starting to understand the environmental issues that were happening in the community. we got word that the city was planning on building a huge waste facility on our waterfront, and it kind of clicked something in me, where i realized that, "oh, wait a second-- we've got a huge amount of these waste facilities here." didn't really know that before, and discovered that this one would have brought an additional 40% of the city's, you know, waste to our waterfront. we were already handling about 40%. >> hinojosa: so a lot of people are like, "waste treatment facility," they don't even know... so... being in the south bronx, you have seen, you have lived around them. >> yeah, i just thought... >> hinojosa: what do they look like?

what do they sound like? what do they smell like? >> oh, gross. you know, there's... with 60,000 diesel truck trips that go through the area because of all the food, you know, distribution place. i mean, it's... we have the world's largest food distribution center in my neighborhood; of course, the food is just trucked in and trucked out, which means, like, huge fumes... >> hinojosa: huge trucks. >> huge fumes and trucks. you don't get the good food; we just get the diesel pollution. we've got two different kinds of sewage treatment plants-- one that, like, most of the bronx's sewage literally goes to it. there's a huge methane flame that's burnt, because they burn off all the methane that comes off the sewage, and i remember-- and you can see it from my house-- and i just thought there was, like, this big fire burning down on the waterfront every day of my life. and then there's a sewage pelletizing plant; takes the sewage sludge and cooks it with a bunch of chemicals, and it smells like rotten eggs and decaying bodies. >> hinojosa: ugh! >> and this has an impact on people's health. i mean, we've got one of the country's highest asthma rates, and we also know now that all that fossil fuel emissions in the proximity to it causes

learning disabilities in young kids. we now know that that-- the kids that don't do well in schools that are already in poor neighborhoods where there're poor schools to begin with-- have a better chance of going on to jail than on to higher education. >> hinojosa: so you're at this wonderful organization, the point... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: ...which is amazing in the south bronx, and you hear about this waste treatment facility, and you get upset? >> yeah. >> hinojosa: and you're figuring that all of your neighbors are going to get really upset too. >> i figured. >> hinojosa: and what happened, actually? >> many people would look at me like, "honey, this is the south bronx; this is what happens here." and, you know, i had a little education; i had a little distance where i realized that, you know what? everybody doesn't have to... everybody doesn't live like this, and everybody doesn't have to live like this-- and no one should live like this. >> hinojosa: and at that moment, you basically said, "i'm stepping up to the plate; this is my issue"? >> yeah, and i also had some really amazing people in my life who really supported me to do

that. you know, some great mentors-- yolanda garcia from... the founder of we stay/ nos quedamos, who, you know, looks at me, you know, as sort of like a new... part of the... a new generation, and it was just like i was going to be one of the leaders in it, whether or not i wanted to be. ( laughing ) she was... ooh, it was incredible. and i was incredibly shy; i didn't want to talk in front of people, and she was just like, "you need to speak from your heart, because this is your community," and i'll never forget that for as long as i live. >> hinojosa: when you, you know, at that point, when you're trying to get your community active and you're seeing that there's a lot of apathy-- it's a predominantly african-american and latino community... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: ...you know, people have this question, "well, do the folks who live there... do they get it?" i mean, there's... on the one hand, they're like, "look, this is just who we are; we're going to continue to be dumped on, there's nothing we can do"... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: and then there's almost a sense of, "they don't get it; they don't understand." >> well, you know, if you start talking about the environment, you know, as if it only exists in the rain forests or, you know, up in the arctic circle,

then no, they're not going to get that. that's very far removed from our existence. >> hinojosa: and that kind of environment, chances are they may not even get to. >> precisely-- but if you start talking to them in terms... meeting them where they are and helping them understand, like, how this... whatever was happening right there was impacting them. like for example, when we help people make the connection between their children's public health in particular and the coming waste facilities, and the fact that there was already a whole bunch there, suddenly people were just like, "oh, is this pollution? oh, it's particulate matter that's smaller than 2.5 microns? that must be really small-- and that's what going into my kid's lungs, and that's what's making me have to take my child to the emergency room twice a month? oh, no, no, no. we're... what do we need to do? what petition to sign?" >> hinojosa: it clicks. >> "who do i need to talk to?" then they understood it, and then later on, it was kind of like, you know, people started to think, "okay, this is great," you know, "we are actually seeing some movement," you know? like, they start to see how our

advocacy paid off, and that, i think, was a really powerful thing. and later on, we wanted to see even more, and then it's like, "well, what do you want in your community?" and it was some bizarre thing, because so many times, i think, in poor communities of any color, we're not often asked what we want. you know, we know, on some level, how to fight, because that's what we do. you know, it's just a part of, like, being in our own culture. it's like, you know, like, being in a place that's hostile to our very existence, because there are done... you know, that that's where you put the pollution, and that's where you put the bad schools. this is where all these things happen, and so we're used to having things done to us, but on some level, we had to recognize that there were things that we needed to really step up and recognize what we wanted, ourselves. >> hinojosa: so this connection, you know, a lot of times when you hear people talk about environment-- the environmental movement-- it is; you're looking at parks, you're looking at, you know, the arctic, you're looking at these things. how do... what... how does the conversation need to change so that people understand it is our

environment, wherever we live? >> people really only need three things: something to love, something to do, something to feel hopeful about. that doesn't change for anybody-- i don't care how rich or how poor you are-- and that also has everything to do with, like, how... the kind of environment you want to live in-- and environment not just being, you know, going someplace, but it's like everything around you. it takes into account, you know, what kind of walk do you have on your way to work? you know, what kind of food do you buy? you know, where do you recreate? you know, what kind of job do you have? and when we start helping people see that all of these have everything to do, you know, with the environment, right? like, our pollution-based economy, you know, helped dictate that there were poor communities-- poor communities of color-- that were always at the negative end, you know, of what that meant. like, we weren't the ones making lots of money from these crazy technologies, and the pollution, and the trucks that may carry goods that we can't get in our own communities; but we were the ones who were breathing it in, and getting sick, and getting all sorts of cancers and stuff like that.

>> hinojosa: so a term like "environmental racism"? >> mm-hmm-- no, actually, i don't like to use "environmental racism"... >> >> hinojosa: because? >> because when people who might be, or, i think on some level we all are, hear of that word, they have... especially when it's in relation to the environment, they'll think, "well, that's not me," and it shuts you down. when you say something like... >> hinojosa: "it's their problem; it's their community..." >> exactly, like, "i didn't do that; i'm not a racist." but if you say things like, "everyone deserves environmental justice," then everyone deserves the right to live in a place that's not disproportionately impacted by lots of polluting facilities, and that we should have some environmental benefits. nobody could disagree with that, especially when you start to make the claim that if you... if folks don't have that, then sooner or later, it's going to affect everybody. and people can... everybody can figure that out. >> hinojosa: because, actually, the south bronx is very close to manhattan. >> hmm, interesting! >> hinojosa: ( laughing ) we all do breath in the same air. >> yeah! >> hinojosa: you had an amazing experience-- and i've been up there with you-- that your dog,

who was a little... who was a stray, ends up leading you all this back way, and you end up finding that there's a riverfront... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: ...in the bronx-- in the south bronx. >> mm-hmm. my dog... it was around the time we were just really early on in the stages of fighting against the waste facility, and i got a dog at the same time. and i kept getting these notices to see if we wanted to restore, and asking community groups to work on these... to get these grants to restore the bronx river. and i knew there was a bronx river-- there was a parkway called the bronx river parkway. it went through my... you know, past my neighborhood. never occurred to me that we could get to the river, because so many polluted facilities. my dog-- actually it was a she, xena... >> hinojosa: oh, ooh! >> ...that's okay. she's a big girl, but she's about 80 pounds, and she literally... i would go jogging with her, and she pulled me into what i thought was an abandoned dump, and it turns out that it was, in fact, a dock that was disgusting. but at the end of it that was the river, and i realized, "oh, my gosh," like, "we could have a waterfront park here," and literally ran home, wrote the proposal, and it grew into this

amazing, amazing thing that we were able to leverage that tiny, little $10,000 grant, like, tons of times over, and we got a $3 million park that was debuted in 2006. >> hinojosa: what i want to know about is how did you figure... okay, "i'm from the south bronx, but i am going to challenge all of these people. i'm going to take them on," because, you know, again, everybody thinks of the south bronx as the dumping ground. >> right. >> hinojosa: what made you... from where, to just say, "yeah, okay, sure, i've been to college, i did all these wonderful things. i have a great degree, et cetera." but what made you really think, "and i'm going to challenge them and i'm going to win"? >> i didn't know i couldn't, you know? it just seemed like this was right thing to do. it's just like, how could you dump on a community, like, this vulnerable for so long and not think that someone was going to challenge it? and i wasn't the first person to challenge them, by no stretch of the imagination. i just use a sort of a different tactic. but it just seemed like there

was nothing else i could be doing with my life, really, and like, i didn't know how it was going to work out, but i sure as hell was going to try. >> hinojosa: you, of course, dedicate yourself-- or dedicated yourself at the beginning of the community... of your career to working in the south bronx. how many other south bronx are there across the country? >> oh, countless, countess numbers. i mean... >> hinojosa: how do you want people, you know, who are watching this show... what do you want them to look out, like, when they're driving by, what do you want them to be looking for in terms of these communities that maybe they drive by and they're just like, "they're abandoned, has nothing"... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: what do you want them to be thinking about as they're zipping by? >> i want to remind people that people everywhere are human, you know? that we all have the same dreams-- the same hopes for our future, for our children, for ourselves where we are right now, and i think the horrible thing about the way poverty has been treated, you know, in our

country-- and actually around the world, but specifically in this country-- is that it's... the problem is the people there, and there's somehow something really, horribly wrong with them. and no one really thinks-- the same way that i didn't know-- you know, back when i was not that much younger at this point, you know, that there were institutional, you know, regulatory, you know, issues that created the south bronx. i mean, nobody in my neighborhood, you know, 50 years... not even 50 years ago when there was lots of manufacturing asked for it to be outsourced to china, therefore losing huge amounts of jobs in our communities. and we could talk about places in kansas city, and chicago, and all over the rust belt, and down south, and all over-- we didn't ask for that. you know, we didn't ask for the prosperity that actually would have led us into... more of r kids into higher education rather into prison, to just go away. we didn't ask for the pollution-based economy to become, you know, basically, you know, indestructible from our own communities. just like, remember, we didn't... those... there was

institutions and huge, powerful bodies that did that, and of course, there were going to be consequences for the people that live there, and it would make it harder. >> hinojosa: you know, i've lived in some of these communities, and i always try to tell people, "you know what? we're just abandoned communities..." >> yes! >> hinojosa: "...we're completely abandoned, and everybody who's living there wants a better community." but, you know, then the drugs come in, and then the police don't come, and it's just you're an abandoned community. but you decide to respond to that by creating an organization called sustainable south bronx. you end up winning this amazing award-- the macarthur genius award. i know you don't like it when people say it, but it is the truth... >> except my husband. i like to trot that out with him every now and then. >> hinojosa: ( laughing ) >> it's like, "honey, who's the genius in the house?" >> hinojosa: oh, my gosh! >> okay. >> hinojosa: so and you end up, you know, addressing the ted conference, and you end up meeting vice president al gore... >> uh-huh. >> hinojosa: ...and that moment when you meet al gore is pretty amazing, right? >> it was. >> hinojosa: because he

basically says to you, "oh, just apply for a grant," you know, "we're going to include you in the environmental stuff." and you said to him... >> well, actually, he didn't say it includes me in the environmental stuff. >> hinojosa: oh. >> it was more of, like, a brush-off. the, you know, "apply for a grant" was kind of like, "we'll have these little things that, you know, that's what we do for folks that don't really deserve a seat at he table." and i was just like, "no, we all need to have a seat at the table." it's big enough for all of us. >> hinojosa: i love that. you're replying to the vice president... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: ...former vice president, and saying, "no, no, no, no, no. i'm not asking for anything; i'm telling you... >> yeah, "...what you need so that we can make this world a better place." >> hinojosa: and how's your relationship with al gore these days? >> oh, we don't really have one. i mean, i totally support what he's doing. i mean, really, no one-- no one-- has done more to raise the issue of climate change on this planet, you know, except the other folks he won the nobel prize with. and but i still think that there is still this perception, you know, that folks from communities like ours-- whether it's urban or rural, because believe me, south bronx's come in rural places too; they are

white, they are black, they are everything in between; it's bizarre. >> hinojosa: yeah, i've been to a place where there's a pork processing plant where there's a lot of environmental pollution... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...in north carolina, yeah. >> yeah, actually one of our... our first client for my new consulting firm is actually working around in that area, but that's a whole other story. >> hinojosa: no, but that leads us into the next thing, because you basically have decided that you want to grow bigger. >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: it's not about just staying at one community-based organization, which is an amazing organization. you decide you need to grow, and so you create your own consultancy, and you actually say, "i've found my inner capitalist." ( laughter ) >> yes. >> hinojosa: because you're feeling like, you know, yeah, south bronx people are really good to fight and protest, but you're saying, what? you want to change? >> i want us to also understand our value. like, i think that the lessons that i learned in the south bronx, that, you know, the projects that we pioneered-- in particular, we're developing one of the first green job training and placement systems in the country that really worked with and taught the ecological

restoration skills to some of the most... folks with significant barriers to employment. folks that who were incarcerated, folks that had been in the public welfare system for decades-- you know, families, generational poverty-- and taught them these skills, and were able... helped them understand not only could they get money in their pockets, but they also could provide these amazing environmental services that did... that provided real monetary benefit, you know, actually, to our municipality in terms of, you know, reducing... helping to, like, deal with urban heat island mitigation, which is the fact that lots of... that our cities are much hotter simply because of all the black-top surfaces that we have and asphalt and stuff like that. water conservation, energy, you know, efficiency issues; and i'm like, "this is a great thing." so i took that and realized that there's some real value in this. i mean, there are lots of people that talk green, but there aren't a lot of folks just yet, because this is still a very new movement-- big time. >> hinojosa: i love... well, yeah, no. i mean, i love the fact that everybody is green now. >> i know, i know. >> hinojosa: everybody's green, and i'm just like, "just how

green are you?" >> yeah. it's a really interesting kind of thing, because what... and i realized that there was so many folks out there like, you know, touting themselves as green consultants, who have actually, like... actually never done many of the things that i've done. >> hinojosa: really? >> and i was just like, "wait a second." like, i know... i mean, like, i saw the changes that it made, number one, in people's lives when they saw themselves as a powerful being. when they realized that they could do something to make this world a better place, and they were. you know, when they put a green roof up, when they actually worked as a part of an urban forestry, you know, steward team. that they knew they were providing a real benefit to the environment, and they felt that power. i mean, that was incredible stuff. >> hinojosa: and plus, they were getting paid, right? >> absolutely! so they knew that they had... it was like the dignity of work, the dignity of the kind of work they were doing, and i was just like, "this is a model that we need to take out. this is exact... like, how do we help other, you know, communities, municipalities, regions around the country do this?" >> hinojosa: and one of the

places where you found some lessons i think was unexpected to you, which is bogota, columbia. >> oh, yes, uh-huh. >> hinojosa: and again, people think of columbia and they kind of think of it in the same way as the south bronx-- disaster, don't even go down, scary, crime. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: in face, bogota, the capital, has done amazing things. >> amazing work. >> hinojosa: what have you learned from bogota? >> oh, my gosh. they, like, helped redefine what transportation could and should be, you know? especially in urban contexts where you've got, you know, huge-- like, the gap between rich and poor is very large. the same way it is in a lot of, you know, urban municipalities around the world. and then what they did was they looked at how many folks actually use cars. it was only, i think, like 14%-- you know, the wealthiest, you know, part... you know, upper echelons of bogotan society. and then most people didn't, and how did they... may people actually lived on less than a dollar or two a day. and then they realized that the only way to actually create, like, a sense of pride for all of bogota was to make... democratize transportation. >> hinojosa: democratize transportation, okay. what does that look like?

>> well, in many cases they got rid of cars, you know? literally narrowed streets; got rid of parking so that if you wanted a car, you had to pay for it. it was not a city's responsibility to do so. and then they created things like bike paths, because most folks were able to afford a bicycle to get around. and they created one of the most incredible bus rapid-transit systems that just allowed folks of, you know, any class, you know, to get to a place really efficiently, and in comfort, and in style, and it was affordable to pretty much everybody. and then they also, in the poorest of the poorest neighborhoods, i mean, they basically like, slums... >> hinojosa: yeah. >> ...they actually created these beautiful open spaces, so that people could be outside, which, of course, reduced the crime rate there. >> hinojosa: wow! >> it was just like, this... i mean, and they did it for a buck and a quarter. i mean, it was... i mean, okay, i'm exaggerating there, but it was still one of some of the most inexpensive pieces of infrastructure that they put in, and i was just like, "why aren't we doing this kind of stuff here?" and i was... i was very close to that area, because it reminded me of my own community. >> hinojosa: so when you think

of the possibilities... of course, you are now working countrywide... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: you have... are you doing international stuff too? >> with any luck, yes. >> hinojosa: okay, some international stuff. >>e've got some... feelers out in the u.k. and also in canada. >> hinojosa: so your vision of what these communities can look like-- describe them for me. yes, you're a visionary, you're a dreamer; okay, your "dreamo" vision. >> okay, i'll give you one example. we got a contract working in northeastern north carolina to help them do regional green economic development plan. this is an area... it's going to have some serious impacts with sea level rise over the next, you know, 20-some years. right now, thinks like mega hog farms and processing... you know, hog processing plants are huge there. they're environmental disasters, you know, for the people that are living near them. you can live at the end of, like, a place where there's, like, hog swill. it's just not so pretty. but we think that those are the folks that should be real leaders in climate adaptation strategies. like, we know that sea level is rising. how do you prepare an area for that? what kind... is there

horticultural... is there green infrastructure that you can add to that place? like for example, in the new orleans are, many wetlands were destroyed, and that's one of the reasons why hurricanes have those increased storm events, because there are not... those natural defenses that really attracted the water are gone. so helping the folks in northeastern north carolina do some of that and really make them leaders, build the workforce of the future, help improve... create taxpayers where they were tax burdens. that's what we're doing. >> hinojosa: majora carter, thank you so much for your vision, for your energy, for you dreams... >> thank you. >> hinojosa: ...and for making them reality. thank you. >> thank you so much! >> hinojosa: continue the conversation at wgbh.org/oneoneone. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

- [narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy and by klru's producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. - i'm evan smith. she's an atmospheric scientist and climate reality evangelist called one of the hundred most influential people in the world by time magazine. she's katharine hayhoe. this is overheard. let's be honest. is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa? i hate to say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak.