Van Jones

Van Jones

Anthony K. (Van) Jones is a Marxist from the San Francisco Bay Area. He formerly worked as Barack Obama's "Green Job Czar". He now works at CNN.

Van Jones was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

About

Van Jones, a Bay Area Marxist radical, was appointed on March 10, 2009 as Green Jobs adviser to the Obama administration-or officially Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Jones' duties will include:

"helping to shape and implement job-generating climate policy; working to ensure equal protection and equal opportunity in the administration’s climate and energy proposals; and publicly advocating the administration’s environmental and energy agenda."

Jones is a TIME Magazine 2008 Environmental Hero, one of Fast Company's 12 Most Creative Minds of 2008, and the New York Times Bestselling author of The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Solve Our Two Biggest Problems (Harper One 2008), which is endorsed by Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle and Al Gore.

The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening

The Book "The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening" is the manifesto of UNITE, published in March, 2021. From the UNITE website:"Featuring stories and insights from Bishop TD Jakes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Van Jones, Arthur Brooks, Amy Grant, Dr. Rheeda Walker, Pastor Rick Warren, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Jewel, Deepak Chopra and many others, The Call to Unite offers readers a book of wisdom to turn to in hard times." The book was edited by Tim Shriver and Tom Rosshirt with an epilogue by Maria Shriver.

Early life

Jones was born in 1968 in West Tennessee, graduating from Jackson Central-Merry High School in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1986. After earning his B.A. from the University of Tennessee at Martin, Jones went on to Yale Law School.

In 1993, Jones earned his J.D. and moved to San Francisco.

SNCC mentors

According to Van Jones:

Dinky Forman and Dottie Zellner were two SNCC workers who took me under their wing and continue to give me council.

Radicalization

In 1992, while studying at Yale, Jones interned at Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in San Francisco where he acted as a legal observer during the trial of policemen charged with assaulting Rodney King.

Not guilty verdicts in the King case led to mass rioting-and arrests.

Jones was radicalized by the jail experience.

"I met all these young radical people of color - I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of... I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary...I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th..By August, I was a communist."'

Jones went on to join and lead a prominent Bay Area communist organization-Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM).

Returning to Van Jones, with all the shimmer associated with a rising star, many forget that a man now advising the president was a member of a revolutionary organization in the SF Bay Area called STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). Throughout the group’s history, Van Jones was seen as a public figure within the Bay Area left and a leading member of STORM.

STORM had its roots in a grouping of people of color organizing against he Gulf War in the early 1990’s and was formally founded in 1994. The group’s politics had a number of influences, but evolved towards what could be best characterized as third worldist Marxism (and an often vulgar Maoism). The group grew in influence until its disbanding in 2002 amid problems of internal dynamics and especially controversy around the leadership roles that members played in the youth movement (such as the fight against Proposition 21). Nearly the entire membership of the organization was staff members for various social movement non-profits in the Bay Area, many linked to the Ella Baker Center, which Van Jones steered.

While never large, STORM was one of the most influential and active radical groups in the Bay Area, controlling numerous front organizations including Bay Area Police Watch, one of several anti police activities Jones was involved in.''

In the early 2000s, Jones and STORM were active in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations organized by International ANSWER, a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.

STORM also had tiesto the South African Communist Party and it revered Amilcar Cabral, the late Marxist revolutionary leader (of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands) who lauded Leninas “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.” In 2006 Van Jones named his newborn son “Cabral”-in Amilcar Cabral’s honor.)

According to former Jones colleague Nina Rothschild Utne in every e-mail Van Jones sends, he includes this quote from Amílcar Cabral;

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories... Our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves, this struggle against our own weaknesses... is the most difficult of all.”

'Engineered' Kamala Harris 2024 Campaign

Van Jones X Post Dated July 24, 2024

From Van Jones's X Post dated July 2024:,

"Kamala’s 48-hour capture of the Democratic Party’s nomination will go down in history as the most successful political campaign in the history of the United States. Take 120 seconds to learn how and why she won."

Transcript of Video:

"...and first of all um you know uh when you talk about ad Donna Brazile, Karen Finney, Jotaka Eaddy: these are African-American women who are the pillars of the democratic party. They do the hard work that nobody sees. They they touch people, they counsel people, they help people and they orchestrated and engineered this outcome not because Kamala Harris is a black woman but because they could not see the Democratic party in disarray and they wanted to make sure that if there was going to be a loose ball it landed in the most capable hands; someone who won as district attorney, someone who's won as attorney general, someone who's won as Senator, someone who's won as vice president. A winner who has delivered over and over again so they engineered the the football getting into their right hands and that was the first step. But then what happened which nobody necessarily predicted was we spent three weeks sitting outside the ICU with a death watch for democracy watching what would happen after that debate if Donald Trump were able to get back in the White House and it was terrifying it was 2025 it was this horrible uh speech that he gave and then suddenly a crack open of Hope one little heartbeat of Hope Kamala Harris raising her hand and saying I'll take care of this and you saw an explosion of support and energy you know black folks are getting a lot of credit of course but you have young people who have taken over Tik Tok for Comm hair you have commom Mania on Tik Tok you have Suburban women who are breathing a s of relief you have a whole"

Common Defense

Matt Haney comrades

Van Jones, Alicia Garza, Lateefah Simon at Matt Haney for School Board Event August 4, 2016.

Ben Jealous connection

Van Jones, has known Benjamin Jealous since they worked in college with the AIDS activist group ACT UP to protest President Bill Clinton’s ban of Haitian refugees, compares the campaign in Maryland to Deval Patrick’s 2006 gubernatorial run in Massachusetts. “Every single theme that he hit wound up being almost a carbon copy for the Obama campaign in 2008,” Jones says. “You could have another Deval Patrick effect, where in the middle of the Bush horror, somebody kind of figured out a pathway and pattern.”

Black Radical Congress

Van Jones attended the June 1998 Black Radical Congress in Chicago, where he got to work with famous communist militants of an older generation.

On Friday evening there was an inter-generational dialogue which was an attempt to blend an historical and contemporary review of the Black liberation struggle by means of older and younger activists interviewing one another.

Veteran activists Kathleen Cleaver, General Baker, Barbara Smith, Ahmed Rahman, Angela Davis and Nelson Peery were "paired up with younger activists" Van Jones, Kim Diehl, Kim Springer, Fanon Che Wilkins, Kashim Funny, and Quraysh Ali Lansana, respectively.

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 28, NO. 3/4, page 45

Van Jones was a panelist at the Black Radical Congress conference held in Chicago, June 19-21, 1998, University of Illinois at Chicago, in the workshop "Sustaining Community Groups and Institutions". The BRC was/is a marxist/Black Power melange of the old Communist Party USA, SNCC, Republic of New Africa and related groups of the 1960s and 70s, with the newer generations of the "Reparations" Movement, the Democratic Socialists of America , and marxists from the Black Power political movements of the 1970s thru 1990s.

Panelists were Jerome Scott (chair), Sharon Powell, Van Jones, Jennifer Henderson, Judy Hatcher (coordinator).

Battling in Seattle

Van Jones and STORM took part in the anti WTO demonstrations in Seattle in 1999-the famous Battle in Seattle.

From a Colorlines articleby Betita Martinez.

In the vast acreage of published analysis about the splendid victory over the World Trade Organization last November 29-December 3, it is almost impossible to find anyone wondering why the 40-50,000 demonstrators were overwhelmingly Anglo. How can that be, when the WTO's main victims around the world are people of color? Understanding the reasons for the low level of color, and what can be learned from it, is absolutely crucial if we are to make Seattle's promise of a new, international movement against imperialist globalization come true...

In retrospect, observed Van Jones of STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) in the Bay Area, "We should have stayed. We didn't see that we had a lot to learn from them. And they had a lot of materials for making banners, signs, puppets.

Copwatch

Van Jones was a founder and leader of Bay Area Police Watch.

Youth Empowerment Center

In the early 2000s Van Jones served on the Board of Directorsof the Oakland based Youth Empowerment Center. Assigned roles were;

Other directors included Harmony Goldberg, President, Van Jones, Secretary Adam Gold, Treasurer and executive director, Cindy Wiesner, Director, Lateefah Simon, Director.

Anti-Iraq War Activism

In the early 2000s Van Jones was heavily involved in ant-Iraq War activity in the Bay Area.

In January 2002, a group of San Francisco leftists, mainly former Maoists or involved with STORM or Committees of Correspondence and including Jones, founded a national anti-Iraq War newspaperWar Times.

The pilot issue of War Times, a new biweekly newspaper opposing the "war on terrorism," will roll off the press on February 14... Featuring an exclusive interview with Danny Glover and a letter to President Bush from Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, the premier of this bilingual, free publication will be distributed in several dozen cities across the country.

Serving on the War Times Organizing Committee were;

• Jan Adams, former associate director, Applied Research Center
• Linda Burnham, executive director, Women of Color Resource Center
• Jung Hee Choi, Women of Color Resource Center
• Max Elbaum, former managing editor, CrossRoads magazine
• Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
• Adam Gold, STORM
• Rebecca Gordon, Seminarians for Peace
• Felicia Gustin, co-director, Speak Out
• Van Jones, national executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
• Betita Martinez, director, Institute for MultiRacial Justice
• Steve Williams, executive director, POWER
• Bob Wing, former executive editor, ColorLines magazine

Ella Baker Human Rights Center/Weathermen Connection

Van Jones has worked closely for years with San Francisco real estate broker, lawyer and activist Diana Frappier.

Jones and Frappier ran police monitoring organization CopWatch, together, then in 1996 the pair established the Oakland California based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

The Ella Baker Center is named after a little known civil rights activist Ella J. Baker (1903-1986) who worked closely with secret Communist Party USA member Stanley Levison-for many years the CPUSA's top money man.

By the 1970s Ella J. Baker was involved with several far left organizations of the time including the Mass Party Organising Committee (MPOC) and the Puerto Rican Support Committee{PRSC). Both groups worked closely with the Praire Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC), the "legal" support network for the terrorist Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

Diana Frappier is believed to be related to Bay Area activists Jon Frappier and Nancy Frappier-nee Barnett. Both Jon and Nancy were active in Students for a Democratic Society(SDS) in the late 1960s. Both were aligned to SDS's Weathermen faction which later submerged to form the Weather Underground Organization.

Nancy Barnett was active in the Bay Area PFOC. According to the FBI's Weather Underground file Nancy Frappier was associated with many WUO members and 1971 the FBI also observed Jennifer Dohrn-sister of WUO leader Bernardine Dohrn visiting Frappier's home in San Francisco.

The PFOC organized a large gathering in January 1976 in Chicago. The Hard Times Conference was designed by the Weather Underground to unite the U.S. far left into a new communist party.

The Black Panthers were invited as were the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers World Party, the Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican Socialist Party, its Puerto Rican Support Group and the Mass Party Organizing Committee.

Ella J. Baker attended the conference representing the PRSC and MPOC, while Nancy Barnett was there representing the Bay Area PFOC.

The FBI also alleges that Jon Frappier traveled to Guatemala in 1966 with future Weather Underground member (and later girlfriend of Bill Ayers, Diana Oughton. The pair were accused of trying to contact Guatemalan guerillas for the Students for a Democratic Society's Radical Education Project.

Jon Frappier went on to run the San Francisco office of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) -regarded as the intelligence arm of Students for a Democratic Society.

After NACLA, Jon Frappier went on to establish an organization that has become the intelligence hub of the U.S. left, the Oakland based DataCenter, which;

supports poor and working class people of color-led organizing efforts to reclaim community knowledge and access information in order to strategically utilize research that strengthens the movement for liberation and social justice and dismantles the structural inequities in research.

According to DataCenter's own website, in 1991 the organization launched the;

Cuba Project/Conexiones to respond to information needs of institutions in Cuba & facilitates information exchange between U.S. and Cuban colleagues for the next ten years.

It also works with Van Jones' and Diana Frappier's Ella Baker Center.

Celebrate our 25th Anniversary with a gala celebration honoring Youth United for Community Action, Southwest Organizing Project, and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Youth Force Coalition for their Books Not Bars campaign.

In 2007, when Van Jones launched Green For All-Diana Frappier was on the Board, while Jon and Nancy Frappier were listed as donors to the organization.

Campaigning for Arianna Huffington

In 2003 Van Jones took unpaid leave from the Ella Baker Center to work as the Grassroots Director for the Arianna Huffington for Governor campaign. He has played a key role in developing the campaign’s “Schools Not Jails” platform.

National Leading From the Inside Out Alum

Van Jones, Founder and Former Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green for All, was a 2004 Rockwood Leadership Institute National Leading From the Inside Out Alum.

"Beyond Identity Politics"

"Beyond Identity Politics: Emerging Social Justice Movements in Communities of Color" by John Anner

"A long-awaited roadmap to the grassroots social justice movements of the 1990s and beyond. The strikingly diverse array of multiracial struggles presented here succeed, in various ways, by moving by simplistic identity politics. In an era when the right-wing seems to be winning all battles, Beyond Identity Politics presents a critical inside look at progressive victories.

Contributors were Clarence Lusane, Mark Toney, N’Tanya Lee, Don Murphy, Lisa North, Juliet Ucelli, Hoon Lee, Van Jones, Gary Delgado, David Bacon, Andrea Lewis.

The Committees of Correspondence Connection

Van Jones and STORM have worked closely for years with members of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), an analgam of former Communist Party USA members, Maoists, Trotskyists and anarchists. Several CCDS members close to Jones were once active in the Bay Area Line of March, a militant Maoist organization.

Bay Area left identity Betita Martinez, a CCDS Advisory Board memberwas close to Jones and helped "mentor" his Ella Baker Human Rights Center staff. Martinez, Committees of Correspondence supporters Max Elbaum and Felicia Gustin, Van Jones and Adam Gold of STORM and former Line of March member Linda Burnham all served together on the organizing committeeof anti-Iraq War newspaper War Times.

When former Line of March leader and leading Committees of Correspondence member Max Elbaum released his book "Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che" in 2002- Van Jones contributed these comments on the flyleaf;

By unearthing a hidden history of radical U.S. politics, Max Elbaum has erected an invaluable bridge between the generations. Finally, we have one book that can successfully connect the dots between the battles of the 1960s and the emerging challenges and struggles of the new century."

Martinez and Jones also both attended a Challenging White Supremacy workshop together.

Jones wrote of the workshop;

“To solve the new century's mounting social and environmental problems, people of color activist and white activists need to be able to join forces. But all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration. The Challenging White Supremacy Workshop is the most powerful tool that I have seen for removing the barriers to true partnerships between people of color and white folks. If the CWS trainings were mandatory for all white activists, the progressive movement in the United States would be unstoppable.”

In a 2003 interviewwith CCDS National Committee member Manning Marable, Jones explained the radical tactics used by his activists from the Ella Baker Center;

We've been applying a concept borrowed from South Africa: "Govern from below." We take high school students and college-age people who've decided they don't care about anything and put them through workshops and educational programs so they can become advocates for themselves. We have a reputation for showing up with several dozen young people at city government meetings and turning the mic over to these young people, who then use hip-hop and poetry to describe the conditions they'd like to see changed in their community.

When we talk about neo-liberalism, essentially we have a system where there are no rules for the rich and no rights for the poor. Politics of liberation in the new century that [exists] in terms of integration vs. segregation is anachronistic. It has little to do with what's happening today. So we raise new slogans: "schools, not jails"; "books, not bars"; "jobs, not jails." Whereas people in the '60s were protesting on campuses, we have a generation of blacks and Latinos protesting for their rights to get on campuses and have the opportunity to learn. The dynamic is very different...It's a very different fight. At the same time it's a continuation of the fight that started years ago.

In February 2006 Van Jones was guest speakerat a Committees of Correspondence fundraiser in Berkeley. Kendra Alexander was a Communist Party USA and Committees of Correspondence leader.

The second annual CCDS and Kendra Alexander Foundation Banquet will take place on Sunday, February 19 at the Redwood Gardens community room in Berkeley with Van Jones, a pioneering human rights activist known as a steadfast opponent of police brutality and mass incarceration, as keynote speaker.

Jones is now working to create environmentally friendly, "green-collar" jobs for formerly incarcerated persons.

The banquet is titled "Towards Building a Progressive Majority" and benefits the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Kendra Alexander Foundation. The Foundation was named in honor of the visionary leader of the Committees of Correspondence.

Davidson on Jones

Carl Davidson is a member of the coordinating committee of the US Solidarity Economy Network, and is also a National Committee member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and is also a founder and current webmaster for Progressives for Obama.

In a reviewof Van Jones' book "Green Collar Economy-How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems" in the radical Rag Blog, Davidson wrote:

It's time to link the newly insurgent U.S. Green Jobs movement with the worldwide efforts for the solidarity economy. Both are answering the call to fight the deepening global recession, and both face common adversaries in the failed "race to the bottom," environment-be-damned policies of global neoliberalism.

That's the imperative facing left-progressive organizers with connections to these two important grassroots movements. It's even more important in the wake of the appointment of a key leader of one of these movements, Van Jones of "Green For All," to a top environmental and urban policy post in the Obama administration.

Jones is a founder of an urban-based campaign focused on low-income young people, multinational and multicultural, that first developed as a progressive response to police repression, gang killings and all-round "criminalization of youth." He saw the exclusion of this sector of the population from living-wage work and other opportunities as a key cause of the violence and destruction. Putting young people to work at low-to-medium skill levels retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency seemed like a no-brainer, so the demand for "Green Jobs, Not Jails" was raised.

The slogan found deep resonance as it spread across the country. Its all-round implications were spelled out in Jones' widely acclaimed book, "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems." It spells out a string of ingenious, interconnected programs aimed at resolving the savage inequalities of structural unemployment and the global dangers of climate change rooted in carbon-based energies systems.

Where Van Jones' approach to both the green and solidarity economies most compels our attention is that he starts where the need is greatest, the millions of unemployed and underemployed inner city youth. The structural crises of neoliberal capitalism has long ravaged this sector of our society through deindustrialization, environmental racism and a wrecking ball approach to schools in favor of more prisons. To borrow from Marx, these young people are bound with radical chains, and when they break them with the tools suggested in Green Collar Economy, they free not only themselves, but the rest of us are set in a positive direction as well.

But Green Collar Economy's core mass base remains a united Black and Latino community in close alliance with organized labor, the same engine of change that put Obama in the White House. And by asserting the interests and needs of that base, the green jobs and infrastructure proposals in Obama's stimulus package serve to drive the entire recovery effort in a progressive direction.

Davidson also promoted Van Jones' vision at the Democratic Socialists of America run April 2009 Left Forum at Pace University in New York.

I had to quickly get to the next panel, since I was on it, and there was only about five minutes between sessions. "Building a Progressive Majority and Advancing a Vision of Socialism" was the title, and it was pulled together by my group, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and chaired by Pat Fry, an SEIU staffer.

I led off by presenting Van Jones's program for Green Jobs for inner city youth, but framing it as a larger structural reform project that could, if done right, unite a progressive majority and help get us out of the current crisis. At the same time, we had to unite a militant minority around socialist tasks, so I offered the solidarity economy movement and its projects as practical examples of cooperative forms that could, within the capitalist present, point to a socialist future.

911 "Truther"

Van Jones was one of 100 "prominent Americans" who signed an October 26 2004 statement circulated by 911Truth.org calling on the U.S. Government to investigate 9/11 as a possible "inside job".

...we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.

Socialist Scholars Conference

In March 2004, Van Jones, representing the Ella Baker center addressed the Socialist Scholars Conference at New York's Cooper Union, an annual event organized by Democratic Socialists of America.

Up For Democracy

Up For Democracy, created in the mid-2000's, described itself as "a multi-cultural grassroots coalition for participatory democracy, economic and social justice and peace"

Steering Committee members included Van Jones - Green for All, Color of Change, D.C.

Green For All

In 2005, Van Jones and Diana Frappier launched the Ella Baker Center's Green-Collar Jobs Campaign. This led to the establishment of the US's first "Green Jobs Corps" in Oakland.

In 2007, Van Jones announced and co-founded with Diana Frappier, a new national organization Green For All - to take the Green Jobs campaign nationwide.

Diana Frappier serves on the board of Green For All. Jon Frappier and Nancy Frappier are listed as donors to the organization.Template:Cite

Dream Reborn

The Dream Reborn poster

One of Green For All's project is Dream Reborn. It organized a conference to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on April 4-6, 2008 Memphis Cook Convention Center.

Some of the presenters were Van Jones, Majora Carter (Sustainable South Bronx/Green For All), Winona LaDuke (Honor the Earth), Malia Lazu (The Gathering for Justice), LaDonna Redmond (Institute for Community Resource Development), Mary Anne Hitt (Appalachian Voices), Reverend Lennox Yearwood (Hip Hop Caucus), Adrienne Maree Brown (The Ruckus Society), Tony Anderson (Morehouse College Student Leader), Ian Kim (Oakland Green Jobs Corps) and more.

The Demos/Obama Connection

Van Jones serveson the Board of Trustees of New York based non-profit Demos, a partner organizationof ACORN and Project Vote.

Jones's White House boss Barack Obama also has ties to Demos.

By 1999, Halpern had assembled a talented working group to develop Demos. Among them were David Callahan, a fellow at the Century Foundation; Rob Fersh, a long-time policy advocate; Stephen Heintz, Vice-President of the East-West Institute; Sara Horowitz, founder of Working Today; Arnie Miller, a leading executive recruiter; Barack Obama, then a state senator from Illinois; David Skaggs, a congressman from Colorado; and Linda Tarr-Whelan, an internationally recognized expert on women and economic development. This working group would eventually form the core of Demos' staff and Board of Trustees.

Jones is currently on leave from the Demos Board of Trustees.

Jones had returned to the Demos Board of Trustees, by 2013.

United for Peace and Justice Affiliation

In July 2007 Van Jones representing Ella Baker Center for Human Rights was affiliated to United for Peace and Justice.

Take Back America America - "progressive plan for victory"

On March 17, 2008, at the Take Back America conference in Washington D.C. Dianne Archer, Robert Borosage, Donna Edwards and Van Jones spoke in the Opening Plenary entitled "The Progressive Plan for Victory".

An interesting Institute for Policy Studies Prediction

Demos is a partner organizationto the radical Washington DC based "think tank" Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

While Van Jones was not appointed as Obama's "Green Jobs Czar" until March 10 2009, IPS had picked out Jones for the job even before the November 2008 election.

In a September 26 2008 article,posted on the IPS website by IPSers Phyllis Bennis and Chuck Collins posited 22 names they thought would make suitable appointments for an Obama administration.

Collins, who also works for Demos named;

Van Jones, of the Ella Baker Center, to direct the Commerce Department’s new “green jobs initiative,”

Incremental Revolution

Van Jones, Uprising Radio, April 2008

Van Jones gave an interview to Uprising Radio in April 2008 in which he admitted that the green movement would become an "engine for transforming the whole society".

VAN JONES: One of the things that has happened too often to progressives is that we don’t understand the relationship between minimum goals and maximum goals.

Right after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, if the civil rights leaders had jumped out and said, ‘OK, now we want reparations for slavery; we want redistribution of all wealth; and we want to legalize mixed marriages,’ if that had been their…, if they’d have come out with a maximum program the very next day, they’d have been laughed at.

Instead, they came out with a very minimum program. You know, ‘we just want to integrate these buses.’ The students [inaudible] came out with a very minimum program. ‘We just want to sit at the lunch counter.’ But inside that minimum demand was a very radical kernel that eventually meant that from 1954 to 1968, complete revolution was on the table for this country.

And I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages. Right now we’re saying we want to move from suicidal gray capitalism to some kind of eco-capitalism where you know, at least we’re not, you know, fast-tracking the destruction of the whole planet.

Will that be enough? No, it won’t be enough. We want to go beyond systems of exploitations and oppression altogether, but that’s a process. And I think what’s great about the movement that is beginning to emerge is that the crisis is so severe in terms of joblessness, violence and now ecological threats that people are willing to be both very pragmatic and very visionary. So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we’re going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.

Recruited by Valerie Jarrett?

Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones

Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, speaks about recruiting Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, at the Netroots Convention on August 12, 2009.

Center for American Progress

In 2008 Van Jones was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Apollo Alliance

Until securing his position in the White house Van Jones served on the board of the Apollo Alliance

On March 10 2009 the Apollo Alliance issued a message congratulating Jones on his new job.

Congratulations to Van Jones, the founder and president of Green For All, a long-time board member of the Apollo Alliance, and one of the nation’s premier voices for scaling up the clean energy, good jobs economy. Jones has accepted the Obama administration’s invitation to be a special advisor to the president for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation. The White House said Jones’ focus will be promoting green-collar jobs in vulnerable communities.

In a statement, Phil Angelides, the chairman of the Apollo Alliance said;

“Van Jones has been a tireless advocate for creating good green jobs that create pathways out of poverty for vulnerable communities throughout the nation. In his new role, he will help shape the administration’s clean energy and climate policy by producing high-quality, career track jobs that give all Americans an opportunity to share in new prosperity. The appointment of Van Jones as special advisor on green-collar jobs is evidence of President Obama’s determination to pursue a new economic development strategy, founded on the principles of clean energy and good jobs.

Blue Green Alliance

The Blue Green Alliance sponsors the annual Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference. The 2009 conference was held from Feb. 4-6, 2009.

Conference speakers included:

• Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio
• U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
• U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
• Governor Martin O'Malley, Maryland
• Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas
• Congressman Keith Ellison, Fifth District, Minnesota
• Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, United Nations Under-Secretary General
• Cathy Zoi, CEO, Alliance for Climate Protection
• Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
• Leo W. Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers
• Larry Cohen, President, Communications Workers of America
• Van Jones, Founding President, Green For All

Campus Progress Conference

Emira Woods, Matthew Yglesias, Fellow, Center for American Progress, Reuben Brigety, Director, Sustainable Security Program, Center for American Progress, Jamie Fly, Executive Director, The Foreign Policy Initiative and Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director, National Security Network were speakers on the Threat Assessment: How the U.S. and the global community should deal with terrorism, rogue states, and nuclear proliferation panel at the Campus Progress Conference held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., July 8, 2009.

Other speakers at the conference included President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Van Jones, former Special Advisor for Green Jobs, White House Council on Environmental Quality.

White House job

Princeton and CAP

In early 2010, Jones was teaching at Princeton University and taking up a senior fellowship at the Center for American Progress, where he will head a "green opportunity initiative."

NAACP awards

NAACP President's Award winner Van Jones (C) poses for a portrait with current NAACP Chairman Benjamin Jealous and former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond during the 41st NAACP Image awards held at The Shrine Auditorium on February 26, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.

LAANE Speakers, Honorees, Entertainers

Speakers, Honorees, Entertainers at Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy events have been;

• Culture Clash, 2011 Dinner
• Tom Morello, 2010 Dinner
• Van Jones, President and Co-Founder of Rebuild the Dream, 2010 Guest Speaker
• Sidney Poitier, Actor, 2010 Guest Speaker
• Sean Penn, Actor, 2008 Guest Speaker
• Danny Glover, Actor, 2007 Guest Speaker
• Congresswoman Janice Hahn, U.S. Representative from California’s 36th congressional district 2007 Dinner Honoree
• Hilda Solis, U.S. Secretary of Labor, 2005 Dinner Honoree

America's Future Now!

Van Jones was one of the 148 speakers who addressed the 2010 America's Future Now Conference.

Take Back the American Dream Conference 2011

Van Jones was one of the 158 speakers who addressed the Take Back the American Dream Conference 2011 . The Conference was hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies, and Democratic Socialists of America dominated Campaign for America's Future,

Rebuild the Dream

Billy Wimsatt co-founded Rebuild the Dream (along with Natalie Foster and Van Jones).

Contract for Rebuilding the American Dream

The Contract for Rebuilding the American Dream is a project financed and promoted by Van Jones and MoveOn.org. The organization tries to capitalize on the term 'the American Dream.' From Glenn Beck:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American Dream is a progressive vision. It is something that we share together. It is not about an individual climbing the ladder. It is about making sure that there are ladders for all of us to climb. The American Dream is a progressive vision and that it requires collective action on our society.

Van Jones picked it up and formed the Contract for Rebuilding the American Dream and ran with the idea.

Some of the organizations involved in this project:

• MoveOn.org
• AFL-CIO
• Change Nation
• Change to Win Strategic Organizing Center
• True Majority
• US Action
• Campaign for America's Future
• Progress Now
• The League of Young Voters
• Color of Change
• Campus Progress
• Working Families
• Green For All
• Democrats.Community
• Congressional Progressive Caucus
• US Labor Against the War
• Common Security Club
• Demos
• The Engage Network
• Youth Speaks
• Economic Policy Institute
• Inequality.org
• Faithful America
• ProgressiveCongress.org
• PIN
• PowerPAC.org
• Progressive Strategies, LLC

Netroots Nation

At the 2011 Netroots Nation conference the LIUNA sponsored a Fight Back for Good Jobs rally featuring LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan, Van Jones, Sen. Ben Cardin, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and other political, business and community leaders.

"The 99% Spring"

Individuals and organizations supporting The 99% Spring, as of April 20, 2012, included Van Jones & Natalie Foster - Rebuild the Dream .

"Forward on Climate" rally

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 the nation's capital hosted what was billed as the largest climate rally in U.S. history.

Thousands of environmentalists, farmers and workers of all kinds gathered in the shadow of the Washington Monument for a "Forward on Climate" demonstration to shout their opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, fracking, Big Oil, and nuclear power.

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, who emceed the event, introduced a list of speakers which included: Bill McKibben, president of 350.org; Van Jones, president of Rebuild the Dream; Maria Cordones, founder of Latinovations; Indigenous Peoples representatives including Chief Jacqueline Thomas from the Saik'uz First Nation and Crystal Lameman from the Beaver Lake Cree First Nations; Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director and Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. Present, too, were celebrities like Evangeline Lilly and Rosario Dawson.

Bold.org, one of the event organizers, predicted that 20,000 people would participate, but Rev. Yearwood announced that the actual number there, 40,000, doubled expectations. Supplementing the massive action in D.C. were some 20 solidarity rallies in 16 states, from the four corners of the country-- Los Angeles, Palm City, Seattle, Portland, Maine-- and points in between. They included rallies in Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and five in Montana alone.

"Green Deen"

"Green Deen: What Islam Teaches about Protecting the Planet", was written by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Keith Ellison.

The following people cotributed in some way to the development of the project: Van Jones, Dr. R. L'Heureux Lewis, Musa Syeed, Ahlam Syeed, Yasir Syeed, Ismail Ocasio, Idris Braithwaite, Samiha Rahman, Sister Aisha Al-Wadiwiyya, Rami Nasashibi, Amir Al-Islam, Debbie Altmontaser, Asad Jafri, Abdul Qadir, Nimco Ahmed, Omar Mullick, Cynthia Hamilton, Professors Rosa Marie Pegueros, Sonia Jarvis, Ed Sermier, Al Killilea, Lynn Pasquerella,

Those thankedd for their help included Terry Marshall, Maytha Alhassen, Tanjila Islam, Najima Nazyat, Yusef Ramalize, Taj James, Jungwon Kim, Suyoung Kim, Wahija Akhtar, Awais Khaleel, Anas Canon, Bracken Hendricks, Mahea & Alea, Kizzy Charles-Guzman, Marianne Manilov, Zaid Mohiuddin, Jody Tonita, Ferentz Lafargue, CAIR-NY, the Green For All Fellows, and the 2008 National Urban Fellows.

"Economic justice"

April 3, 2013, at Mason Temple Church Of God In Christ (Headquarters) Memphis, Tennessee. Martin Luther King III, Lee Saunders, Al Sharpton, Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones and more joined a panel discussion on economic justice.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s final act of solidarity. In commemoration of his life and his solidarity, union members, civil rights leaders and community activists are again gathering in Memphis for a series of historic events.

On April 3, the community will gather from 7-10 p.m. in the historic Mason Temple at 930 Mason St., Memphis, Tenn. Highlights include entertainment, a panel discussion on economic and racial justice and special remarks from civil rights leaders.

This event is part of a series of events April 3-4 to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's work.

"Crossfire"

After months of speculation, CNN announced June 2013 that the debate program "Crossfire" will return with four new hosts. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and conservative columnist and current MSNBC host S.E. Cupp will represent the right. Political consultant and former adviser to the Obama campaign Stephanie Cutter and CNN contributor Van Jones will host from the left.

Ear to the Ground Project

Ear to the Ground Project;

We would like to express our deep respect and appreciation for everyone who took the time to talk with us, and the organizations that generously hosted us during our travels. Interviews were confidential, but the following people have agreed to have their names listed for this publication:

Most of those listed were connected to Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Van Jones was among those on the list.

#cut50 Briefing in D.C. (January 22, 2015)

#cut50 packed the house with political movers and shakers on Jan. 22 2015, in Washington, D.C. to address the critical need for criminal justice reform. Speakers included Dream Corps Van Jones, Right on Crime's Vikrant Reddy, Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senator Cory Booker, and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

Secret Meeting/Progressive Agenda

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio held a closed-door meeting at his mayoral residence on April 2, 2015, to create the Progressive version of the 1994 Republican “Contract with America.” De Blasio called his update the “Progressive Agenda” and its stated purpose was to address “income inequality” in the U.S. A dozen far-left leaders attended the closed-door meeting, including George Soros’ son Jonathan Soros. Jonathan claims to support removing money from politics, yet hypocritically serves on several boards at the Open Society Foundation (OSF). OSF has given more than $550 million to liberal organizations. Other liberal leaders at the April 2 meeting were Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, “disgraced” former Obama advisor and 9/11 Truther Van Jones, Marian Wright Edelman, and liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz. In an April 6 interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, de Blasio confirmed that key elements of the Progressive Agenda included: a progressive tax (driven by the Buffett Rule -- which argues that wealthier individuals should have to pay higher taxes), universal free pre-kindergarten, and a $15 minimum wage. De Blasio said the full Agenda would be unveiled at the May 12 event in Washington, D.C.

According to Rolling Stone, other attendees included Sherrod Brown, the populist senator from Ohio, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy. The novelist Toni Morrison showed up, delighting de Blasio and McCray. Other attendees included Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva, chair of the House Progressive Caucus.]

"Progressive Agenda"

Signers of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's May 12, 2015 launched The Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality included Van Jones - Rebuild the Dream.

Facing Race conference

The Facing Race conference participants gathered just days after the conclusion of the most contentious election season in decades, November 10-12, 2016 — Atlanta, Georgia.

Both major parties exposed their deep splinters, Trumpism became the new normal and many politicians were forced to deal with issues that communities of color raised to national prominence. In Facing Race's closing plenary on November 12, racial justice leaders speak to the challenges of governance before us, and how the movement can position itself to make the most of the next four years.

These are the activists and thought leaders featured in "Where Do We Go From Here?" listed in alphabetical order:

• Kara Denise Brewer Boyd, director, American Indian Farmers
• Marisa Franco, director and co-founder, Mijente
• Glenn Harris, president, Center for Social Inclusion
• Pramila Jayapal, U.S. congresswoman-elect for Washington's 7th Congressional district; founder, OneAmerica; co-director, We Belong Together campaign
• Van Jones, author and co-founder, Rebuild the Dream
• Linda Sarsour, advocacy and divic engagement coordinator, National Network for Arab American Communities
• Rinku Sen, president, Race Forward

"Trump will never be my President"

Leyla Martinez, November 16, 2016 ·

My responsibilities kept me in New York this week, however I hope that you all know that I am with you in spirit!!!!! #FreeHer #FreeHim #FreeMichelleWest #FreeWilliamUnderwood #BeyondtheBox #FreeAmerica #SchoolsNotPrisons #NCIFIWG #educationisthekey #POTUS #clemencyisjustice #TheResistance #unapologeticallynotwithhim — with Jason Hernandez, Miko Myco, Amy Lou, Tray Rock, Anthony R. Underwood, Celebrity Ebony, Michelle West, Kyndia Riley, Topeka K. Sam, Beth Curtis, Brittany K. Barnett, Van Jones, Reynolds Wintersmith, Clarence Aaron and Ramona Brant at Trump Will NEVER Be My President.

Brown is the New White: New American Majority

Ford Foundation, Published on Apr 15, 2016

On April 6, 2016 the Ford Foundation hosted a discussion with civil rights lawyer, political leader, and author Steve Phillips about how America's shifting racial demographic landscape and its underlying disconnects are shaping this polarized election season.

Van Jones moderated Deepa Iyer, Ian Haney-Lopez, and Tamara (a Republican) were also participants.

Van Jones revealed that he had known Steve Phillips as an activist in the 1980s. Also when he served on the San Francisco School Board in the early 1990s.

Movement Voter Project Advisory Board

Movement Voter Project Advisory Board members, as of January 24, 2018 included Van Jones.

Publications

STORM Summation - Reclaiming Revolution

External links

• AFL-CIO
• Campaign for America's Future
• Campus Progress
• Change Nation
• Change to Win
• Color of Change
• Common Security Club
• Congressional Progressive Caucus
• Contract for Rebuilding the American Dream
• Democrats.Community
• Demos
• Economic Policy Institute
• Faithful America
• Glenn Beck
• Green For All
• Inequality.org
• MoveOn.org
• PowerPAC.org
• ProgressiveCongress.org
• Progress Now
• Progressive Strategies, LLC
• The Engage Network
• The League of Young Voters
• True Majority
• US Action
• US Labor Against the War
• Wikipedia article about Van Jones
• Working Families
• Youth Speaks

References

Template:Obama advisors