Majora Carter
- Date of Birth
- 10/27/1966 (43 years old)
- Place of Birth
- Bronx, NY
- High School
- Bronx High School of Science
- Undergrad
- Wesleyan University
- Graduate
- NYU
- Neighborhood
- Bronx
- Website
- www.ssbx.org
- Filed Under
- Non-Profit
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Who
Majora Carter is the founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, a non-profit focused on promoting environmental justice and green space in the borough.
Backstory
A lifelong Hunts Point resident and Bronx Science grad, Carter attended Wesleyan and earned an MFA from NYU before taking a job with an arts awareness program in the Bronx. When then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani proposed building a landfill in Hunts Point in the early '90s, an outraged Carter helped launch The Point CDC, which successfully blocked the city's plan to move ahead with the municipal waste facility. In 2001, she founded Sustainable South Bronx, which works on environmental issues like mitigating pollution and advocating for more parks and playgrounds.
Of note
One of the more prominent environmental activists in the city, Carter and Sustainable South Bronx are the driving force behind the South Bronx Greenway, a set of bike and pedestrian paths along the Hunts Point and Port Morris waterfront areas. (Carter and SSB have raised nearly $30 million for the project, including federal and city grants.) Carter has also been pushing for "green roofs" in the South Bronx—as opposed to the black tar roofs so common throughout in the city—a move that would reduce energy consumption as well as improve air quality. She's also championed plans to raze the much-maligned Sheridan Expressway and turn the land underneath it into a park. Those looking to see her in action needn't attend obscure Bronx community board meetings: She co-hosts the Sundance Channel's The Green, about communities working on environmental causes.
Trophy case
In 2005, Carter won a prestigious MacArthur "genius" grant of $500,000, which she put toward funding her organization. She was also the recipient of a fellowship from George Soros's Open Society Institute in 2002.
Personal
Carter is married to James Chase, SSB's Communications Director. (They married amid the construction of the South Bronx Greenway in October 2006.) They live with their dog, Xena, on Manida Street in Hunts Point.
