Naomi Davis

Location: Chicago, IL

About Naomi Davis    

CitizenPowered.org member since Sun 02-03-2008

Through my consultancy, Daughter’s Trust and the non-profit I founded, BIG: Blacks in Green, I target robust black participation in the emerging green economy and promote a new paradigm for economic development I call "blacks-in-green-villages" - the establishment of green, self-sustaining, mixed-income, micro-villages in blighted, gentrifying, or colonized African American communities. I am an attorney, entrepreneur and activist, serving as a bridge between communities and developers in the design and construction of neighborhoods that foster business opportunity, civic activism, and healthy lifestyle. One such project is the Ton Family Underground Railroad Living Heritage Farm & Village on the Little Calumet River in Chicago's lower 9th Ward, a proposed tourism destination which features cultural and Calumet assets, and supports new traditions like its Annual True North Underground Railroad Festival - an event I conceived. I engage churches, schools, community groups, and businesses as collaborators, encouraging them to embrace green collar jobs-careers-and enterprise and blacks-in green-villages as the answer to soaring unemployment, violence, school drop-outs, incarceration, and health ills disproportionately impacting communities of color. I invite them to return to our great legacy of environmental stewardship, and to the common sense of yesterday’s self-sustaining neighborhoods. Through BIG, I have produced Chicago’s first weekly green television broadcast (The BIG Show), support Chicago GreenFestival as a community partner, collaborate with Chicago’s Department of Environment on Blue Cart recycling and climate change initiatives, and am partnering with other locals to launch BIG Bike Riding & Repair and Diesel Engine & Veggie Oil Cooperatives – all efforts designed to help link the African diaspora, leverage its resources, and create a new generation of environmental leaders. I serve on the boards of the Illinois League of Conservation Voters, Climate Justice Chicago, The Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort, and on the Environmental Justice Advisory Group of the Illinois EPA. I am honored to have received Lt. Governor Pat Quinn’s 2007 Environmental Hero Award, a recent appointment to the editorial board of a new peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Justice, and to care for my Mom and "shero" Miss Juliet of Minter City, Mississipppi. I am presently an LLM candidate in Real Estate Law at John Marshall Law School, and my home and office are on Chicago's south side.

Personal Statement

I am the granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers, raised with my brother in Queens, NYC, the daughter of a merchant shipman and his wife, a public school teacher. Love and respect for the land, and a strong desire to contribute to community life were core values which have inspired my mission. In all my work, I'm devoted to creating opportunities for the disadvantaged that honor both the bottom line of finance and the priceless virtue of heart; to revealing that we rise and fall together with a shared destiny; to reminding us our common source created us to shine.

My Websites:

BIG: Blacks in Green

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