Majora Carter

MAJORA CARTER

Ideas

Responses

Majora Carter is an American environmental advocate and artist. She has demonstrated a range of environmental justice solution strategies in her hometown of the South Bronx, New York and currently works as the Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx.

Carter graduated from Head Start, PS 48, IS 74 and the Bronx High School of Science. She went on to receive a B.A. in film studies from Wesleyan University in 1988, and in 1997 received an M.F.A. from New York University. While at NYU, she returned to her family's home in Hunts Point to save some money, help care for her elderly parents (she is the youngest of 10 siblings), and work with a local youth/arts group, serving as a project director for The Point Community Development Corporation, working on youth development and community revitalization in Hunts Point, in the Bronx.

In 2001, Carter challenged New York City's plan for a solid waste management plant to process 40 percent of the city's garbage at a facility on the Hunts Point waterfront. Successfully diverting this plan, Carter formalized this action by forming the Sustainable South Bronx, for whom she serves as executive director.

Interests

Most Recent Idea

The Environment

Re: Should we boycott the China Olympics?

04/25/2008

Description: We need to take a stand, Carter says, but not at the athletes' expense.

Transcript: Well, I’ll answer the first part, first. No. I definitely do not think we should be boycotting the China Olympics. I think it would be a good idea if President Bush did not show up at opening ceremonies. But no. The athletes have every right, and they’ve been working all their lives for this, and they should do that. And God bless them. But you know, being honest, I didn’t have any long-standing involvement, you know, with the pro-Tibet movement. But given what I learned, you know, about what they were going through, it seemed to me an appropriate thing for me, as a civil rights activist, to do to show support at that level. And I didn’t expect to be thrown off the route by Chinese Military Guards. But I truly didn’t, because I thought I was in America, and I thought I had the right, you know, to freedom of expression and freedom of speech. But apparently, they didn’t think so. But I’m glad that I was able to use my platform of being an environmental leader to show support for my brothers and sisters in Tibet.

Recorded on: 3/17/08