Anthony K. Jones

Ella Baker Center

In 1996, PoliceWatch grew into the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Greening the Ghetto," The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2009. The organization tackled state and local ballot initiatives that aimed to treat minors as adults in courts and prisons and led efforts to encourage the government to fund inner-city schools rather than juvenile detention facilities. Later, the group would expand its work to include the "Green jobs not jails" idea, advocating for programs that would train and provide jobs for young people in the environmental field.

In 2005, Jones led the "social equity track" at the United Nations' World Environment Day summit. Jones also co-founded the group Color of Change, an effort to strengthen online political organizing in the black community after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in fall 2005.Ella Baker Center Web site, "A brief history"

The Ella Baker Center's work led the city of Oakland to approve funds for a green jobs corps in 2007, which will help trains residents for jobs in the environmental field. Later that year, Jones worked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's  (D-Calif.) office and then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who now serves as the secretary of labor, to get a national green jobs measure included in the 2007 energy bill. The act directed $25 million-per-year toward job programs that target low-income communities.

Green for All

In late 2007, Jones announced that he was leaving the Ella Baker Center to form a new, national group dubbed Green for All that would focus on creating green job opportunities. In that capacity, Jones has toured the country, speaking about green jobs at a number of national forums.

In April 2008, his group organized the Memphis "A Dream Reborn" conference designed to unite civil rights and environmental leaders. Jones published his first book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008, which became a New York Times bestseller.Color of Change website history page.

Jones appeared as a panelist at the first meeting of the Obama administration's Middle-Class Task Force on Feb. 27, 2009. He was tapped to join the Council on Environmental Quality, headed by Nancy Sutley, on March 10, 2009.

Controversies

In summer 2009, Jones found himself in hot water with conservatives. Color of Change, which he co-founded in 2005 to strengthen online black organizing following Hurricane Katrina, made headlines when it demanded advertisers boycott Fox News host Glenn Beck's show after Beck said that Obama was a racist with a "deep-seated hatred of white people or the white color."  Kennedy, Helen, New York Daily News, "President Obama insult by Glenn Beck has advertisers boycotting show," Aug. 18, 2009

Beck later devoted a segment of his show to attacking Jones as a "rowdy black nationalist," "committed revolutionary," and "self-professed communist."Gold, Matea, "Show Tracker," The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 24, 2009 Conservatives also see Jones as part of dozens of "czars" in the Obama administration who are not subject to Senate confirmation, and thus public review.The Glenn Beck Program, Aug. 3, 2009

In September 2009, Jones wasn't helped when a YouTube video emerged from February 2009 when he explained the lack of Democratic progress in passing Obama's agenda as the result of Republican "assholes." Jones apologized for the "offensive words." Thrush, Glenn, Politico.com, Sept. 2, 2009

Furthermore, Jones was pilloried for signing a 2004 petition linked to the 9-11 Truth movement, which believes that high-ranking government officials helped orchestrate the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and is demanding investigations.Gateway Pundit, Sept. 4, 2001

He was forced to resign on Sept. 5, 2009, saying: "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me...They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

"I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."The Washington Post '44' Blog, Sept. 4, 2009

'Greening' the Ghetto

The process led to "Green Jobs Not Jails" and the formation of a movement to use the emerging green economy as a pathway out of poverty for low-income people of color.

By 2005, Jones had begun promoting the idea of green-collar jobs, or manual labor jobs in the environment and sustainability field, as an employment option for low-income, youth of color. After a decade of working in youth-violence protection and juvenile justice reform, Jones says he realized that there weren't many alternatives provided to these young people to keep them off the streets.

Jones says that the country needs to "green the ghetto first." "Give those kids on the corner the opportunity to put down the handguns and pickup a caulking gun instead," he told President Obama’s Middle-Class Task Force in February 2009.Sheppard, Kate. "Joe knows," Grist, Feb. 27, 2009.

Environmental and Economic Justice

Jones argues that low-income people of color have historically borne the brunt of environmental harms, like pollution from the landfills and power plants often located in their communities. He points to Hurricane Katrina as an example of the disproportionate effects that catastrophic weather has on impoverished communities, noting that these types of events would increase with global warming. Jones argues the struggle for access to the clean, safe communities and jobs in the green economy as a continuation of the civil-rights movement.

"It's important that we don't forget the lessons of the last century about the importance of including everybody in our hearts and our minds, and our policy," Jones told the American Prospect.Sheppard, Kate. "Sign of the Times," Grist, Oct. 20, 2008. "If Dr. [Martin Luther] King were alive today, he would be standing in the flood waters of Katrina saying that in an age of floods, we can't leave our neighbors to sink or swim," Jones says. "He'd be saying, let's not create a racially- segregated green economy."

Green Jobs as Economic Stimulus

Jones argues that the move toward an environmentally- sustainable economy is the best hope for regaining the country’s economic vitality. More green jobs would help create new jobs in construction and save energy through efficiency.

"We're at the end of that long detour from sanity, and we're going to go through a very painful readjustment where we realize we cannot build a national economy on credit cards," Jones told Grist. "We're going to have to fuel the American economy with creativity here in the United States, not credit from overseas, and get back to building rather than borrowing, and doing so in a way that honors the earth and honors people."Sheppard, Kate. "Sign of the Times," Grist, Oct. 20, 2008. 

"Dirty Greens"

Jones has referred to those politicians and lobbyists who advocate for technologies like more environmentally-friendly fossil fuels like coal, nuclear power and tar sands as “dirty greens." "They'll say out of the one side of their mouth that they want renewables, but then, sometimes in the same sentence, they'll say they want the dirtiest and most-dangerous energy technologies ever heard of," said Jones.

Hailing from the coal-producing state of Illinois, Obama has been supportive of investments in clean coal on the campaign trail, but Jones doesn't think that should be included among green technologies.