National Initiative to Create 250,000 Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America

Green for All, a new national campaign dedicated to bringing green-collar jobs to urban neighborhoods, launched today at the Clinton Global Initiative. Created by Van Jones, the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the group wants to harness the power of the growing green economic wave to bolster predominantly black, low-income communities in areas such as Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans.

“It’s time the African American community had a part in the discussion on climate change,” said Jones. “We’re not going to solve global warming just with expensive consumer choices like buying hybrid cars and shopping for organic food. People need to realize that you don’t have to be white or wealthy to benefit from going green.”

The goal: To secure job training for 250,000 workers from urban communities for the emerging green job market, a two-prong attack on social injustice and environmental degradation. Which goes to show, really, that environmentalists and civil-rights activists should just sew their pants together.