NCBCP Headlines
Black Women and the Green Economy
Felicia M. Davis
Louisiana Weekly
Apr 6, 2009
The term "grassroots" connotes organizing at the local level to improve the spaces and places where ordinary folk live their lives. Throughout time Black women have provided leadership at this level; we now have an opportunity to provide global leadership by resurrecting traditional Black family values to usher in a new era of conservation. Waste, excess, and conspicuous consumption must be replaced with a return to responsible stewardship. We helped to plant physical, intellectual, and spiritual seeds that are now sprouting in an international movement for environmental justice and equity...what is now referred to as sustainability. We create change from the bottom up.
While scientists measure the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere seeking to devise technological solutions to avoid forecasted catastrophic climate upheaval, Black women of faith, healers, and organizers point to the breakdown of the family, erosion of values, unhealthy neighborhoods and global human rights abuses as signs that things are out of balance.
