Van Jones - American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney
Files
Date
4-16-2013
Description
President and Co-Founder of Rebuild the Dream, Champion of People Power and the “Green Collar Economy”
This event will be streamed live at www.wright.edu/streaming. We will also be recording Van Jones' lecture, to be viewed at the P L Dunbar Library. The live streaming begins at 7 p.m.
Van Jones is president and co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered innovations to help fix the U.S. economy.
A Yale-educated attorney, Jones has written two New York Times bestsellers: The Green Collar Economy, the definitive book on green jobs, and Rebuild the Dream, a roadmap for progressives in 2012 and beyond. Jones is currently a CNN contributor.
In 2009, Jones worked as the green-jobs advisor to the Obama White House. There, he helped run the interagency process that oversaw $80 billion in green energy recovery spending.
Van Jones’s awards and honors include:
- Visiting Fellow in Collaborative Economics at Presidio Graduate School
- Member of the international Ashoka Fellowship
- Rolling Stones’ 12 Leaders Who Get Things Done in 2012
- A 2005 World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader”
- One of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009
- One of Fast Company’s 12 Most Creative Minds on Earth
- One of Essence magazine’s 25 Most Inspiring African Americans in 2008
- One of Ebony magazine’s 2011 Power 150
- Former distinguished visiting professor at Princeton University
- Former Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund
- A leader in the clean-energy economy, Jones is the founder of Green For All, a national organization working to get green jobs to disadvantaged communities. He was the main advocate for the Green Jobs Act; signed into law by George W. Bush in 2007, the Act was the first piece of federal legislation to codify the term “green jobs.” Under the Obama administration, it has resulted in $500 million for green job training nationally.
While best known as a pioneer in the environmental movement, Jones has been hard at work in social justice for nearly two decades, fashioning solutions to some of urban America’s toughest problems. He is the co-founder of two social justice organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change.
Jones is on the board of several organizations and nonprofits, including National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), Presidio, and Demos.
Repository Citation
Wright State University (2013). Van Jones - American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney. .
Comments
This event took place at the Student Union Apollo Room.