Majora Carter reminded me of the precedent. From hello I knew that I was talking to a woman of great wisdom and promise, the woman who is behind the revolutionary development, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX). SSBX is a not-for-profit organization aimed at confronting and correcting the infrastructure of the South Bronx through community building, ecological restoration, and job placement for local residents. In 2001, the Wesleyan and NYU educated Carter won a battle with New York City and discontinued the plan for a waste management plant that would process 40 percent of the city’s garbage in the Hunt’s Point area of the Bronx. “I grew up when the banking industry was abandoned and the neighborhood was full of garbage dumps, empty lots, and buildings where companies used to stand,” she told me. “Upon coming back after school I knew that if something wasn’t done, this area would continue to serve as the dump for the city’s toxic waste and pollutants”. With a population majority of African-American, Latino, and immigrant residents, Hunts Point is one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation. Ornate of cesspools of sewage-treatment facilities and waste transfer stations, the area also coincidentally has one of the highest asthma rates in the nation. “With constant health issues like asthma and obesity, an unemployment rate of 25 percent, and school systems where the kids are not performing, people don’t want to be surrounded by garbage. They want to see waterfront environment and open space,” she continued. These convictions led Carter to act against what would be one of the biggest movements in modern environmentalism.

Her battle against the city’s landfill was only the first of a line of triumphs for SSBX and what Carter calls “the greening of the ghetto”. Green Roofs replaced the common asphalt roofs with vegetated green roofs that improved the overall air quality of the area. Also, the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (B.E.S.T.) trains Bronx community members in a three-month certification program in landscaping, Brownfield remediation, and ecological restoration.

With a new feel and smell to Hunt’s Point, the recent commercial interest of land developers and real estate investors are of no surprise. Arbitrarily, the economic development interests of the backers would replace community buildings with commercial properties that may make the area and Carter’s efforts both victims of contemporary gentrification. “I’m not working this hard so that the poor people can be forced out,” she explains. To counter this possibility SSBX is working on a recycling center, Bronx Recycling Industrial Park, which would employ 300-500 people in the area. Finally, in an effort to provide the open space of Carter’s dreams, one in which the view of the water will bring peace of mind and a hard-earned, deep breath to her long hours, her most recent project, The South Bronx Greenway Project (SBG), is a plan led by the community to create bicycle and pedestrian paths along the waterfronts of Hunts Point and Port Morris. In 2005, Carter was awarded the $500,000 Macarthur grant for her work with SSBX.

I was not only blown away by my conversation with Carter, who given the precedent depicts a woman of great vigor and wisdom, but I was greatly empowered by the fact that this woman (who has only just begun) is not what most would picture as an environmental leader. This beautiful black woman, a city girl from the South Bronx, disregarded all social norms of characterization, saw something that displeased her, and acted. It is with this zeal, this courage, that the world can be changed. We are not as much victims of our circumstances as we are of our tendencies to enable those circumstances to dictate the courses and conclusions of our lives. Carter’s example encourages the notion that a dream and willingness are the only tools needed to build lives and environments that we know we deserve. The strengths of our communities are dependent on pro-active steps that we take towards their transformations. Majora Carter and Sustainable South Bronx are symbols of the reconstruction movement, where builders confront giants, lay foundations of substance and sustainability, and triumph over the unfortunate elements that embed themselves into the continuity of our lives. We salute her brilliant activity, laud her spirit, and join her in her fight for a better environment, humanity, and world.