[Van Jones talks at Newark's Green Future Summit]

In his new book The Bridge at the Edge of the World, NRDC co-founder Gus Speth advocates environmentalists' embrace of human rights, social justice, and other progressive ideals under one banner. At Newark's Green Future Summit last week, I found evidence that Americans have preemptively enacted Speth's request and instigated a shift towards inclusive coalition.

According to event organizer Apollo Alliance, Newark represents "the first time a predominately African-American city has pursued a new economic strategy based on clean energy development and creating green-collar jobs." In pursuit of this mission, the two-day summit brought together a smorgasbord of sustainable NGOs and local organizers from around the city for two days of forums, workshops and site visits to see green workforce development, open space, sustainable architecture, youth and community initiatives in action around the city.

Importantly, attendees signed commitments for collaboration at the end of each workshop, and moderators publicized the fruits of their brainstorming to the broader audience as they assembled for headliner speeches.

Speaking of which, the inspiring series reached crescendo with keynote addresses from shining minds in two shiny brown heads: Green for All founder Van Jones and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Van-guard: Jonesing for Some Change

As Mayor Booker said, "Van Jones is truly like a brother." And though their physical resemblance doesn't much exceed those aforementioned shiny brown heads, both displayed in their speeches a potent oratory gene.

Jone's took the stage first. In both rhetoric and resume, he embodies inclusive environmentalism. He has pursued social justice by defeating prison construction in Oakland, promoted urban renewal by passing green-collar job initiatives, and galvanized both environmental and egalitarian sensibilities with phrases like the "Eco-Apartheid" connecting inequity to ecology. With the undulating tenor of a sermon, he stirred together strands of black power and green energy:

"Racially integrate the solutions-based economy. Make sure a clean and green economy has a place for it in everybody. Make sure those locked out of the pollution-based economy are locked in to this solution-based economy. Make sure those pushed down in the pollution-based economy are now lifted up in this solution-based economy."

Voices of witness burst out from our congregation as he pounded the pulpit and pinpointed the importance of strained cities such as Newark: "Green the ghetto. You can't save the polar bears if you don't save the cities."

Jones continued challenging the environmental establishment to include urbanites in the fight for the planet. "You want to beat global warming?" he asked, "Help us weatherize our buildings. Leaking buildings create drafty chilly people, but they also create a hot planet. You want to beat global warming? Put our young people to work."

He congratulated Newark on its bold mission while advising a balance between patience and procrastination: "Keep the hope without letting hope turn into hype. In one year, you've done what took four years to get done in Oakland. But I don't expect to come back here in a year and see happy black people in jetpacks putting up solar panels everywhere."

Jetpacks or not, weatherizing homes will create jobs and lower community energy costs; green food options and open spaces will boost health and general happiness. And the coalition equipped by and for this goal will unify the community across socio-economic strata. Applauding the longevity of local politics, Jones quipped, "I'm not talking just about the A-team, I'm talking about the B-team. The Be-Team: they've been here, they're gonna Be here."

Likewise, the diversity of both skin and collar color in Jones' audience solidified for him a scenario of shared solutions.

"Forty years ago, Dr. King was put in the ground because he had a dream... Now we have a chance to be in a room like this were from the beginning, we've got every color in the rainbow. Where from the beginning, we've got the Mayor, we've got elected officials. Instead of blocking us with red tape, they brought some green scissors to cut the red tape."

A Sacred Effort: Black History Framing a Green Future

Holding those green scissors, Newark's Mayor carries a legacy of Civil Rights activists parents Cary and Carolyn Booker. Since election in 2006, he's used an Ivy League education and a background in community organizing to hit the streets and personally fight crime. As he recalled to the conference, people would turn on the light at three in the morning to find him roaming the block. "Mr. Mayor, what are you doing?" He equipped a flustered face and recited to audience laughs, "Looking for drugs."

But this quixotic engagement brought results. At the time of his inauguration, Newark suffered the highest murder rate in a decade; this year, Mayor Booker foresees a record-breaking low in that macabre metric.

He sees the "green revolution" with the same mortal intensity. "When we think of this green movement as distinct from anything else we are doing as Americans, we are not going to succeed." He stepped down from the podium to pace before the assembly, "This is now fully a Newark effort. It's wholly saturated in the consciousness of our leaders."

This saturation trickles down from the Mayor's example. As Van Jones told us, "You have a mayor who has a green vision, who talks about prison re-entry at the same time he talks about green. You're not just talking about throw away stuff, but you're talking about throw away lives too."

Like Speth and Jones, Cory Booker sees human rights blended with environmental ethics. His oration interwove quotes and anecdotes from the Civil Rights movement – Lincoln to Douglas to Carmichael. After his second inaugural address outlining equitable ideals, President Lincoln sought Frederick Douglas' counsel. The latter replied, "A sacred effort, Mr. President."

The Mayor tied Newark's green initiative to this legacy:

"This is a sacred effort. This is a divine calling...This is a call our ancestors heard when they fought for abolition, heard by the suffragettes, heard in the fight against child labor, heard in Birmingham, Alabama when they stood before the fire-hoses. It is a calling heard when this city was in flames, and Newarkers said, 'Hell no! I'm making my stand here! I love my city; I love my community; no one's giving up on Newark!' But we have not yet fully answered this call. Let our generation give forth a sacred effort."