Van Jones
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Van Jones 1994 fellow
Bold Idea
Promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration in Urban America through grassroots organizing, direct action, media advocacy, public education, policy reform and legal service.
Organization
The Ella Baker Center is named for an unsung civil rights hero who inspired and guided emerging leaders. Through organizing, leadership development, and advocacy, the Ella Baker Center unlocks the power of low-income people, people of color, and their allies to transform California and inspire the world.
Biography
Van Jones is president and co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, a pioneering initiative to restore good jobs and economic opportunity. As an advisor to the Obama White House, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green recovery spending. He was also the main advocate for the Green Jobs Act, which George W. Bush signed into law in 2007. Van is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund. He has been recognized by many national and international organizations: The World Economic Forum named Van a Young Global Leader in 2005, and in 2008, Fast Company magazine said he had one of the 12 most creative minds on Earth. TIME magazine named Van a global environmental hero in 2008; it named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. Van is also the best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs, The Green Collar Economy. He holds a joint appointment at Princeton University as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
