Sheila Holt-Orsted came to The Dream Reborn to share her story about toxic racism in her hometown of Dickson, Tennessee. Now she needs our help.
It has now been a year since the United Church of Christ released "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty." The 2007 UCC report profiled the failure of various levels of government to protect the African American Harry Holt family's in Dickson, Tennessee whose wells were contaminated with the toxic chemical TCE from a county owned landfill. To view and sign petition click HERE.
I've been sitting back in Oakland at the Green For All office,
processing reimbursements for scholarships, thinking about next steps,
and feeling a bit of a let down after all of the intensity of The Dream
Reborn...
But Julian just started playing this recording, of
Rev. Yearwood speaking to us in Memphis, and it brings the emotional
intensity of that weekend and the power of this movement right back. Listen:http://odeo.com/audio/18082653/view Let's
spread what we got out of that historic weekend as far and wide as we
can. Share your experience with your community and friends, or pass
along a radio show, video clip, blog posting or
article, that captures that weekend for you. Check out some of the media the conference has generated
so far (dreamreborn.org/article.php?list=type&type=6)
and upload your own videos, photos, and blogs. Let's share our energy and knowledge from
The Dream Reborn with
those who could not join us in Memphis...
This year, I was proud to help launch a new, national organization, Green For All. Our advocacy organization is committed to building an inclusive, green economy, strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty.
Green For All wanted to do something special on April 4, 2008 - to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
So we did something unusual. We brought more than 1,000 people to Memphis, the Southern city where he was assassinated.
And then and there: we declared the Dream ... REBORN.
Furthermore: we vowed that - this time - the Dream will uplift both the people AND the planet.
It was beautiful. The "Dream Reborn" conference was the first "green" summit to honor MLK and explicitly link his vision of justice to the emerging green economy. For everyone who attended, it seemed to be a transformative, life-changing experience.
For years and years, conventional wisdom has held that no "green conference" could attract people of color or low-income people. It was always assumed that attendance at such summits would always be 90 percent white and overwhelmingly affluent.
Not this time. More than 70 percent of the 1,200 attendees were people of color. And more than half of all attendees were of modest means; as a result, they qualified for some level of "scholarship" support to attend the three-day event. (Thanks to the generosity of Green For All's supporters, we were able to raise enough money to financially support hundreds of people who would been unable to come otherwise.)
As a result, the conference didn't just LOOK totally different. It FELT totally different. From the main stage, we heard drums, prayers, choirs, poetry, and speeches that sounded more like passionate "civil rights" sermons. From the audience, we heard cheers, chants, shouts and - sometimes - sobs.
And during workshop times, the conference center looked like a ghost town. That is because few attendees lingered in the hallways, chatting and socializing and trading business cards. Instead, they crammed themselves into every chair, covered every bit of floor space, stood along the walls - hungry to learn how they could make their own neighborhoods and cities bloom as green oases of prosperity.
During the day, the plenaries, panels, workshops and sessions were packed and over-flowing with people of color, labor leaders and white people from struggling communities. And at night, slam poets grabbed the microphones, dance music took over the sound system and laughter filled the sidewalks and streets around the conference center. Outside of a church revival, I have never seen so many people of color laughing, crying and hugging.
In fact, I have never experienced the kind of energy I felt throughout the convening. Good reason, apparently. Civil right veterans in attendance were openly weeping; they said they had experienced nothing like it since the 1960s.
Something powerful shifted on April Fourth.
Dr. King was only 39 when an assassin gunned him down. He has been gone for 40 years now, longer than he was ever here. Since his murder, two generations of adults, plus a rising batch of teen-agers, have been born. And we each have a duty to re-imagine the Dream for a new century - and to make it into a reality. On April Fourth, a critical mass of us decided to do just that.
Below, I offer the reflections of some of the bloggers and reporters who attended.
The Dream Reborn was a historic success! Over 1,000 practitioners, visionaries, and youth from all over the United States came together to honor Dr. King's legacy and celebrate young leaders of today and tomorrow. We came away inspired, invigorated, and infused with tips and tools for taking the movement for an inclusive green economy back to our communities. In this effort, we know that the best tool we all have is each other.
To that end, we are looking forward to including all of you as exhibitors, speakers, and participants of the Dream Reborn event in a new online community. Your missions, projects, and campaigns will bring enormous value to the event, as they will provide people with tangible, direct ways they can plug into this work over the long term.
We have partnered with WiserEarth create a unique online community space for our event. WiserEarth is an international directory and networking forum that maps, links and empowers the sustainability and social justice community. It also provides a Group functionality, where initiatives such as the Dream Reborn can organize and create "buzz" around events or campaigns. Our Group is meant to be a virtual "landing page" that will point people to your work before and after the event itself.
We invite you to join the Dream Reborn group on WiserEarth and update your organizational information so our viewers can learn about your work. We also encourage you to add any relevant background information, like resources, events, job postings, files etc relating to your work. Remember, this is a way to encourage people to visit you at the event, as well as an opportunity to expand your support base, and educate the global WiserEarth community about your work.
Below are the steps you will need to take in order for your organization to participate in our Dream Reborn Group on WiserEarth:
1. Create your personal username and password here. <http://www.wiserearth.org/user/new>
2. Join the Dream Reborn group by clicking "Join this Group" here <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/dreamreborn> 3. In our Dream Reborn Group <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/dreamreborn> , browse the "Organizations" Section until you find your organization. Click on it and add any important updates/info to your organization's profile
4. From the Dream Reborn Group page <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/dreamreborn> , add resources, post events, start discussions etc. Let everyone know what you're up to!
If you need assistance on any of these steps, please email info@wiserearth.org.
King's Legacy Grows Green in Memphis By Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 31 March 2008
Today
they'd be called "green-collar jobs" - cleaning up the environment.
Back then, the workers who performed those jobs were just garbage men.
And they were treated like garbage. Martin Luther King Jr. died
fighting to make their green-collar jobs be good jobs.
On
the 40th anniversary of King's assassination, the green-collar jobs
group Green for All is bringing people from all over the country to
Memphis, Tennessee, April 4-6 for The Dream Reborn, a celebration of
the life of Dr. King - and a call to create millions of good
green-collar jobs as a pathway out of poverty.
The
Dream Reborn will "bring together a generation of new leaders who are
taking on the chief moral obligation of the 21st century, building a
green economy for all."
We said we could do it , and we did. One thousand people from every
corner of the nation will be joining together in Memphis to transform
their communities and bring new hope to the planet.
Now we have the wonderful problem of a whole bunch of people who will
hear Van Jones on TV, who didn't register before now, who read about
it in the Memphis press and won't be able to come...but the people who
are coming will come back to their communities all tooled up and
inspired to share the dream...reborn.
We will make history in Memphis in a truly unprecedented gathering of
over 70% people of color and working folks who are the leaders of this
new movement for a green and fair economy for all. Many of the people
coming we have only heard rumor of their inspiring work, others we
will be meeting for the first time, while many will be reuniting with
new shared visions.
We set out to join the various sectors of the green jobs/eco-equity
movement in order to strengthen our ties, to leverage our work in our
communities, to launch Green For All in a way which includes those that
need be at the center of this movement, to hold up the new
visionaries, while honoring Dr. King and our Civil Rights heroes, and
activate people with new skills to bring home.
People across the country from Alaska to Florida, from Texas to New
York are moving their whole lives around to get themselves to
Memphis...calling babysitters, getting subs at their work, getting
their homework done early, and moving mountains to come to The Dream
Reborn. Why? Because, these are the people who carry hope and passion
for the future. It is up to all of us birth to the new dream for the
generations to come. No one else will do it for us. What better time
to fully honor the legacy left by Dr. King, and lead this country into
a new era of peace, justice and well-being for everyone!
The name Memphis comes from a city in ancient Egypt. Memphis was also
known as Ankh Tawy meaning "That which binds the Two Lands."
Let us bind our stories, our dreams, our skills and that which is most
powerful about each one of us to defy the nightmare of poverty and
ecological disaster, and build the world we collectively dream of...
Thank you for all of your support making it happen.
My perception of, my joy over, my respect for the movement to place people on green pathways out of poverty is too full with histories and hopes to write of in any other form than a poem at present. Please add your history and hopes in your comments so I might represent them in future posts.
Prospers Mountain- Part 1
For in the mapping of earth story there springs sown/unsown folly,
Beings- of- course are cast to the foothills of forgotten proem.
Yet rising full bellied and ravenous of the elixir found in the valley crease,
Calling and charging "we will reform this proem, capturing the glory from its source,
we can re-carve this mountain from it's very base we've been borne to!"
One may shy from such bravery, but doubts are allayed at the calling forth of collective memory.
"Our surest sojourner has breached the guard at prospers peak before, and presently
we will reshape this mount from beneath its very feet!"
This is the banishment song of scorched tort, sore earth, and sodden humanity.
Hand over fist, hand in to fist, fearsome freedom rung clear and proud, heralded out across hearth and heartland. Let it abound!
On April 4, 1968, a sniper assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The preeminent civil rights leader of his time, King had come to Memphis, Tennessee, to aid striking sanitation workers. He was only 39 years old.
Forty years have passed since that fateful day. As of this month, Dr. King has been gone from us longer than he was ever here. As we pass this milestone in history, we gather in Memphis to remind ourselves and the world that - though a bullet killed the dreamer - it did not kill the dream.
Dr. King had a vision of an America as good as its promise, and a world at peace with itself. That vision lives on in the hearts of hundreds of millions - including two generations of adults and a rising generation of teen-agers, all of whom have been born since King's passing. The time has come for us to step forward. We must take full responsibility to advance the cause of justice, opportunity and peace.
It must be said that we are stepping onto history's stage at a frightening time-at a time when "the Market" is free, and the people are not.
A time of global warming and global war. A time of mass incarceration of people, and mass extinction of species. A time of "no rules" for the rich, and "no rights" for the poor. A time when our courts seem to give nothing but evictions and convictions to those on the bottom. A time of increasing profits for the few, and decreasing options for the many.
And yet, inside the United States, the tide has begun to turn. The GOP juggernaut that carried the nation to the brink of destruction has begun to run out of gas. Ordinary Americans today are longing for a leader, not a cowboy-in-chief. Some are rethinking consumerism, seeking healthier choices for their families, worrying about oil prices and even the climate crisis. And just three years after George W. Bush's re-election, the mighty political party that Karl Rove thought would rule America for generations appears to be falling apart at the seams.
Something has shifted-profoundly. Unfortunately, all the old political figures, outdated modes of discourse and stodgy institutions are still with us. But you can feel something exciting beginning to stir -and break loose-underneath.
The future is getting restless. We are on the brink of something promising and new. And for the first time in more than a generation, those of us who value living beings over dead products have a chance to offer real leadership to the country.
Our generations must embrace the example Dr. King set - and re-imagine it, to meet new challenges.
For example: in his time, Dr. King worked for equal protection and equal opportunity. We, too, must adopt that agenda. But ours is an age of both ecological AND social peril. Therefore, we must insist that vulnerable communities get equal protection from racial discrimination - and from the floods, storms, droughts, plagues and fires that global warming is causing. (No more Katrinas!)
Ours is also an age of positive economic transformation: billions of dollars are pouring into the solar, wind, organic agriculture and other clean industries. This green economy will generate thousands of business opportunities - and millions of new jobs. We must seek to guarantee equal opportunity in this growing "green" economy. We must insist that the coming "green wave" lifts ALL boats. Those low-income communities that were locked OUT of the pollution-based economy must be locked INTO the clean and green economy. Our communities and especially our children deserve "green jobs, not jails."
Dr. King - and many others - fought, bled and died to racially integrate a pollution-based economy. Today, America is creating a new, clean and green economy. From the start, it should be designed to have a dignified place for everyone.
Dr. King linked the solutions of civil rights, peace and economic opportunity. We must link the solutions of social justice, peace and ecological sanity. Our dream must uplift the people - and the planet, too. This is the calling of our time.
We seek a world society wherein we use clean, alternative energy to fuel our machines ... healthy, organic and local food to fuel our bodies ... and hope, solidarity and love to fuel our movements for change. Our cause itself must become irresistibly beautiful, vital and sustainable. Success will come when our networks are practical enough to "organize" tens of thousands - and soulful enough to "magnetize" millions.
So let us dare to imagine: a healthy, joyous, self-confident liberation movement. A movement that celebrates more than it condemns. That solution-izes more than it problem-atizes. Imagine a movement for justice - with its arms wide open.
In these "difficult days," we have a duty to do more than curse the darkness. We must, ourselves, shine a new light. That is what Dr. King did. And forty years later, new generations have come to Memphis - bearing lanterns of our own.
Green For All welcomes you to Memphis. Here and now, we boldly, proudly and loudly declare The Dream ... REBORN.
Green For All has just produced a new video with Van Jones and leaders in the new eco-equity movement about what you'll find in Memphis at the Dream Reborn. Check it out!!
In other news..
This week is a Green Light Special on conference registration! Register by Friday March 14th at 5pm PST and get 10% off the normal price.
Scholarship funds are still available but you must apply by Friday at 5pm PST to be considered.
The full Program of panels, workshops, and events at the Dream Reborn is now available for download.
so far, we have provided scholarship support to over 150 people from awesome groups from across the country... The League of Young Voters, a busload of Morehouse College students, Minnesota Environmental Justice Advocates, individual students and community workers from Massachusetts, North Dakota, Philly, New Mexico... the list goes on.
it feels really great to have a part of my job be calling amazing people and telling them that we can provide the financial support they need to come to The Dream Reborn.
and we've got more money to give, for now. our goal is to get 500 people scholarship support to The Dream Reborn. that's 350 more people...
With exactly one month to go, we are calling on our communities across
the nation to get on board The Dream Reborn bus!
Here's the deal...Memphis is gonna be off the hook. Think about it.
The weekend of April 4-6 will be one of the largest Civil Rights
gatherings in many of our lifetimes. The Memphis Visitors Center says
its no joke - 50,000 people are rolling in to town that week. So, if
you know you are coming, don't wait one more second...get online NOW
and get your registration handled, your hotels reserved, and your
transportation booked. We all got our flights out of Cali today, and
there were some great deals, but the prices are going up daily!
This is for REAL...Memphis hotels are mostly booked. The only rooms we
know about at a relatively reasonable rate are our blocks of rooms.
See www.dreamreborn.org/lodging for info. AFTER NEXT WEEK THE PRICES
GO UP! Don't miss out on the deals we have been able to secure, or
perhaps even the chance to get a room in downtown Memphis.
Hundreds of people have confirmed. We have room for only 1000, so
REGISTER now!
SCHOLARSHIPS STILL
AVAILABLE for students/low income communities of color. Download the
scholarship application and find out within a couple of days.
We have been feverishly working around the clock putting a stellar
group of presenters together. I can hardly believe that all of these
visionaries will be together at one place at one time. Don't miss this
historic opportunity...and if you like your friends, don't let them
sleep!
Our tireless Green For All team is working to raise scholarship money
so that money will not provide a barrier to peoples' participation.
By
the generosity of our community, we have raised $60,000 of our $125,000
goal. Can you help us get there?
We are also looking for socially-conscious, green businesses that
might want to buy an exhibit booth (going fast!) and/or contribute
sample gifts for our registrants gift bags.
Oh, and did I say REGISTER NOW!
P.S. Its not the perfect answer to carbon-based travel, but we are
carbon offsetting the conference by contributing to one of the largest
urban parks in the United States, located in Memphis, Shelby County,
Tennessee.
Shelby Farms And Seven-Star events is making sure the event is green and zero-
waste!
The Green Guerrilla's are coming from N.Y.!
We are in the five week countdown to The Dream Reborn conference. We are so excited to be in Memphis with everyone. This gathering has the potential to unite our communities and create a national network of green jobs advocates and practitioners that can uplift the country. Who doesn't want to end poverty and stop global warming all at once? Together, we can do this!
We can't believe the amazing people from almost every state who will be coming to The Dream Reborn. Can you imagine the power of this group of leaders all in one place?! --Folks from the Holy Cross community and the green building wave in New Orleans; Jerome Ringo, president of the national Apollo Alliance; the amazing women from SCOPE's green collar work in Los Angeles; Food Justice leaders from Chicago, Oakland and Atlanta; Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke or Honor the Earth and Evon Peter from Native Movement; Majora Carter from Sustainable South Bronx; leaders from every campagin at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; youth and campus movement leaders Tony Anderson from Morehouse, Nikki Henderson from UCLA, and Kari Fulton from EJCC, Executive Director of Applied Research Center, Rinku Sen, folks from Appalachian Voices, Memphis green entrepreneurs and social
justice leaders and more!
Don't wait to sign up! Space is limited to 1000 people, and hotels are filling up fast. Go to www.dreamreborn.org RIGHT NOW and sign yourself and your community up TODAY! Fifty thousand people are expected to be in Memphis for the historic Dr. King weekend. The Dream Reborn will march with the community to the Civil Rights Museum on April 4th. You don't want to miss this event!
We need your support! Help us get youth of color and working class community leaders to the conference. Help us make this movement truly Green For All by helping
someone get there. This is the time!
The buzz just keeps building around Green-Collar jobs--especially in the political sphere. On a nationally-syndicated radio show, Green For All ally Jerome Ringo breaks it down for anyone confused about the role of Green Collar jobs in politics and the future of the country. Check it out here.
Jerome will be speaking at the Dream Reborn--will you be there to hear him? Register Now!
When I was only one year old, one of the greatest visionaries that ever lived was taken from us. I can't remember that terrible day when Dr. King was killed. I can only imagine the shock and pain felt by those who were part of the Civil Rights Movement in 1968.
Throughout my life I have imagined what it must have been like to march with Dr. King, to sing, to stand up in the face of such ignorance and hatred, and ultimately to be catapulted into a surge of such great hope and courage that a nation was transformed. I have spent much of my adult life working to support the manifestation of such a movement for justice to lift up the country again.
Forty years later, as the Event Chair of The Dream Reborn, I now have the incredible honor to help bring together the many great leaders and dedicated change makers of today in Dr. King's honor. In the midst of all the buzz of organizing the many moving parts of this gathering, I am sometimes caught off-guard by this thought. I see a Dr. King quote, or I am sent a story about someone who remembered working with him, or I get an email from a young woman in New Orleans trying to rebuild her home… and I am filled with a hope and passion for what is possible for us to create together in our time.
The way I see it, we have the opportunity of a lifetime. We are collectively called to address perhaps the greatest set of challenges facing the human species, and indeed life on our planet. If you are reading this blog, then you are well aware that of the grave and deepening disparity between rich and poor, the increasing wars over oil and resources, and the seemingly unavoidable threat of massive climate upheaval as a result of human carbon output and global warming.
Its in the face of all of this that we are seeing a massive upsurge of youth and student activism that I personally haven't seen since our days in the streets of Seattle during the World Trade Organization/anti-corporate globalization movement in 1999.
Having worked on issues ranging from old growth redwood clear cutting to Mumia Abu Jamal, movements which seemed so disparate at the time, I am excited by the potency and synthesis of projects like Solar Richmond's collaboration with Grid Alternatives, training low income urban youth to install solar panels in a city that has been so besieged by toxic pollution and poverty.
We are blessed to have leaders in our movement like LaDonna Redmond and Majora Carter who are revitalizing their respective cities, Chicago and the South Bronx with so much verve and creativity.
It is amazing to see mayors across the nation now seizing the opportunity to collaborate with local groups to move policy, regardless of support from federal legislators. Though, even at the federal level, individual electeds are making the link between jobs, equity, and the environment.
Every day, I hear about new innovations in green technologies that I barely understand. I talked on the phone today with a Memphis-based entrepreneur who is already manifesting the vision for new technologies that serve Black farmers and move us away from dangerous chemicals.
I am getting enthusiastic calls from diverse groups from all over the country who want to see how they can support The Dream Reborn by sending representatives from low income communities of color, and join this new wave of hope.
And in my own community, I sense a quickening as our converging and overlapping webs of action are strengthened and emboldened by the dream of an equitable, clean and green economy that works for all. My deepest goal is that we are able to bring together communities that have not yet found a way to work together, and build integrity and trust across whatever differences are perceived. Then we will be unstoppable.
The green jobs movement offers a deep and integrated solution to both poverty and the ecological crises. In commemorating the extraordinary life of Dr. King, we have an opportunity in Memphis to build relationships between the many sectors of this growing community of practice, while shining the light on the new visionaries of our times. The dream reborn is us.
Green for all!
Alli Chagi-Starr
Event Chair, The Dream Reborn
alli@greenforall.org
Tight on cash? Has your wallet been empty lately? Do you have a burning desire to take part in the Dream Reborn and kick it with
an incredible gathering of thinkers, doers, and visionaries, but a lack of funds is holding you back?
Good news: we scraped together some cash for scholarships to make sure that people who need to be in Memphis can get to Memphis. Act quick--the funds probably won't last long. If you or your group anyone you know wants/needs/deserves a scholarship, hit up www.dreamreborn.org/scholarships while you still can.
Scholarship funds are primarily intended for low-income people of color who are dedicated to the mission of Green For All and the Dream Reborn--if you fit the bill, jump on it!
Who knew that the vision for green-collar jobs would take off so quickly? Every day, there's another media hit, another politician's speech, another voice in the powerful chorus calling for green-collar jobs. ABC News is the latest to get with it. Below, Van Jones on the nightly news summarizing the vision...check it out!
When I volunteered to work 10-15 hours a week for Green for All, I knew
that most of time would go toward developing The Dream Reborn. I didn't know that planning a conference could be such a transformational experience.
The vision of creating green jobs ownership among communities of
color and low-income communities is manifesting--and I'm humbled by the
amount of support we've already received. I often wondered how the
"pathways out of poverty" piece of the message Green for All spreads
would happen. Ideally, it seemed like the creation of jobs through
legislative lobbying on the federal, state, and city level would meet
grassroots community efforts, so the communities most in need of these
jobs could initiate their own programs and have a strong place at the
table in designing their retrofitted neighborhoods. Accomplishing this
would mean prioritizing and creating the space for these communities to
train one another, learn from one another, and build bridges.
A difficult task, to say the least. But everyone here is committed
to creating that space, and the fact that our allies are coming
together to strongly support us speaks volumes about our maturity as a
movement. A vast amount of Americans are indeed ready for equal
opportunity for all, and have open ears when listening to the steps
required in getting there.
Thank you. All of you. It makes me keep on tickin'.
Posted by The Green For All Team on February 8th, 2008
For weeks, the buzz has been building. With no formal outreach, word has been spreading about a gathering in Memphis this spring--a new kind of event for a new kind of movement. An event to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King and bring people together around a compelling new vision for a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. This isn't your standard schmooze and networking conference--The Dream Reborn is a launching pad for a movement.
And now, the dream of The Dream Reborn is real--digitally at least. Today, we're unveiling our website--DreamReborn.org--the online hub of the Memphis conference and the place to get all your green-collar info. We'll keep this blog updated with the latest developments about the conference and the green-collar economy. We'll post pictures and video from around the web that tell the story of this new movement, and recruit some guest-bloggers who are at the cutting edge of green-collar initiatives from around the country. Nothing quite like this has ever been attempted, and we're thinking big. Stay tuned.
Brought to you by Green for All and the Ella Baker Center.
