AJAMU BROWN

Earth Day Address – April 22, 2010

Times Square, New York City

My name is Ajamu Brown and I am here to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day.

In 2009, TogetherGreen, an initiative of the Audubon and Toyota partnership, awarded me a fellowship.  It is designed to build the promise of a greener, healthier future through innovation, leadership and volunteerism.

I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant also known as Bed-Stuy located in the heart of North Brooklyn. My neighborhood has many challenges both socially and economically.  Despite this, the trend of going green is catching on, and my Bed-Stuy Eco-Mapping Project is designed to highlight some of these local green activities.

For the past several months, I have worked with community residents to promote food justice and advocate a local food economy that is more sustainable and fair to workers and consumers.

On the ground, we’re talking to community gardeners, who have led this movement for decades, and we’re connecting them to the youth that walk by these green spaces every day.

Through my activism I have spoken with many residents who have cultural roots in the rural South and the Caribbean and can remember a time when they were more connected to nature.

The goal of my Eco-Mapping project is to capture those stories and begin and intergenerational dialogue in the community with the hopes of inspiring youth of color to get involved with urban agriculture.

As a native New Yorker, I have seen, and I appreciate, the planting of thousands of street trees, the designation of many needed bike lanes and newly formed farmers markets that are now part of our urban landscape.

Many of these resources we see today derived from years of community organizing by groups and committed activists who advocated for change.  Environmental activists such as the late Hattie Carthan, who saved a Magnolia Tree — now the only living landmark in New York City and developed an ecology center for children.

Or the late conservationist and founding member of the Weeksville Society Joan Maynard, whose legacy can be seen in what is soon to become Brooklyn’s second Leed-approved green museum and showplace in Brooklyn. The work of these two women exemplifies local leadership that has inspired others to organize to create sustainable change in their community, proving that everyday is Earth Day.   Yet, today the concept of a green community is still an elusive concept in many low-income neighborhoods.

The reason is understandable when you look at these examples: there are bike lanes in my neighborhood but we still have 1 out of 4 children that are obese. In my lifetime, I would like to know that young people in my community and other communities throughout the nation are able to access safe green spaces just as kids do in wealthier communities, and that all residents, regardless of class, can access healthy affordable food.

This can only be obtained through a democratic system that involves community input.

So I ask that we use Earth Day to understand how urban and environmental policies affect all segments of our community and plug into initiatives locally and globally to ensure the we all have an equal opportunity to live, work and play in a clean green environment.

Thank you for listening!

I heard you are what you eat!