We Made History—and the News

Just back from a conference on the environment. Sort of.

This was like no green event I’ve attended, and I’ve been to my fair share of them: the sprawling Green Festivals, brainy Bioneers, well-intentioned SVN sustainable business gatherings, crunchy Harmony Festivals…Burning Man 007…

So what made it different?

Well, for starters, it took place in Memphis, Tennessee, not California or upstate New York.

And it didn’t have “green” or “sustainable” in its name. It was called The Dream Reborn.

And we didn’t get eco-bags stuffed full of flyers and “eco-friendly” trinkets that got dumped into hotel trashcans.

There was gospel singing, and praise for God. Mmn-hmm. Let me hear you say it now.*

And, get this: Global warming—and scary statistics about ice melts, water levels, storm forces, disease vectors and endangered species—were hardly mentioned.

And: thank the gods!—there was hardly a pair of Teva’s to be seen. Instead, people had style.

It wasn’t the typical green event crowd. The ratio was perhaps 1:6 whites to people of color. We Euro-Americans were a few raw nuts folded in a rich brown batter.

And the speakers? There was no Al, Arnold, or Amory. Neither the James** nor the Julias*** made appearances. No one from the covers of green Vanity Fairs was given top billing.

The participants didn’t even identify as “environmentalists,” just as ordinary people who drink water, eat food, and breathe air.

Come to think of it, “conference” felt like the wrong word, though the event took place at the Convention Center, and there were plenaries and workshops and fancy receptions, and everyone had badges hanging around their necks.

As one fine speaker said, it was more like a family reunion, where you can sit down with any given perfect stranger, and after a few moments of talking, discover how you’re connected, and experience that eerie recognition of the traits you have in common.

So what WAS this thing?

The Dream Reborn, held on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, marked the launch of the U.S. civil rights and human rights movement of the 21st century.

The new Dream: to engage those people lacking dignified jobs in work that heals the planet and that not only creates a pathway out of poverty, but leads to The Good Life, the American Dream.

Because it’s going to take a significant amount of work (and sacrifice!, on the part of some of us—but that’s another conference… and mostly for a different crowd) for us to pull back from the brink of catastrophic climate change. And there are lots of people in this country, poor brown and black ones in particular, who really need and want work that they can feel good about.

At the end of an intensely productive day sharing strategies and models and diagrams and messaging and leverage points and technical assistance and business cards…, when the Hot 8 Brass Band of New Orleans rolled in, some half of the thousand of us kicked up our heels and clapped and snapped and snaked and ground and clowned around…and when our procession left the Convention Center for the streets, the sheen of our smiles lit the night, and our chant “GREEN FOR ALL! GREEN FOR ALL!,” it carried.

It’s carrying still.

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*Note: I do believe that there is a powerful, beautiful and creative force greater than myself that includes myself.

**Hansen, Lovelock

***Roberts, Butterfly