Book Launch and Community Mobilization National Tour

The Earth, The City and the Hidden Narrative of Race:
Discovering New Foundations for the Great Work of Our Time
Celebrating a Year of Growth in 2017
This year-end letter is an expression of celebration and of our profound gratitude to you, our community. In South Africa, there is a concept of interconnectedness, called ubuntu : "I am, because you are." As the Reverend Desmond Tutu explained in his foreword to Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty by Dr. Paloma Pavel and Anne Herbert: "Ubuntu builds extraordinary resilience enabling [a] people to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize our [communities]."

Amid a backdrop of polarized communities, environmental upheaval, and the rising voices of underrepresented groups demanding a say in our country's future, in 2017, Carl Anthony completed his long-awaited book, The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race. With Dr. Paloma Pavel of Breakthrough Communities , we are now launching the Earth City Race Community Mobilization Tour, advocating for healthy and sustainable communities in metropolitan regions across the United States.

Leaders at grassroots organizations, national conferences, and philanthropic foundations invited Carl Anthony and Dr. Pavel to speak about race, affordable housing, and environmental justice in underrepresented communities. Some highlights include the Imagining America 2017, Bioneers, and California Vision 20/20 conferences, the National Adaptation Forum, the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation in New York. They also joined California's Environmental Literacy Steering Committee , to advise on implementing equitable environmental literacy for California's 6.2 million public school students. Your ubuntu spirit is building this tour with us, and together we can work for environmental justice in urban communities. We are reaching out to you to halt destruction and build community power. Will you join us?

Your support for this work is invaluable, and a gift of any size will make a measurable impact on our work. For example:
  • $25 enables us to give a copy of The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race to an incarcerated youth or disadvantaged community that can use it as a resource to apply these strategies.
  • $1,000 enables us to offer a community mobilization workshop in a school or organization that builds community power.

In 2018, invite us into your community, host us on our tour, or connect us to universities and organizations. There are so many ways to help - in the spirit of ubuntu, any contribution means a tremendous amount to us, and helps us continue this critical work.

We invite you to join us in solidarity, and support these vital initiatives today.
Join Carl Anthony and Dr. Paloma Pavel
on the Road in 2018
Connect with Carl Anthony and Dr. Paloma Pavel in 2018, as they continue the Earth City Race Community Mobilization Tour. They will be speaking at:


Follow us for more event updates at EarthCityRace.net. Invite us to your city or event
January 24-25, 2018:
International Transformational Resilience Coalition:
 Preparing People for Climate Change in California
 (Oakland, CA)
Presenters: Carl Anthony and Dr. Paloma Pavel. Join us and register here.

This conference will offer a diverse array of informative presentations and workshops by leading experts, who will describe preventative skills, tools, and policies for building personal and psycho-social-spiritual resilience in the context of climate change effects. Carl and Paloma will share strategies that link environmental degradation and social justice, and how these issues affect the resilience of people
of color. They will also contextualize the connections between social movements
and issues, providing insight into successful movement building, and offering
an inclusive vision of our shared planetary future.
A LOOK BACK: NEW YORK BOOK LAUNCH
November 2017
This November, we took the Earth City Race tour to New York. People from around the region showed their support at events hosted by The New School, Pratt Institute, Bluestockings Bookstore , and more. The Earth City Race team are grateful for the outpouring of support from the New York community!

On Nov. 15, the New School graciously hosted the New York book launch of
The Earth, the City and the Hidden
Narrative of Race .

The evening was a great success, and opened with a stirring performance of African drumming by the New School's Kweku Sumbry , a student of the School of Jazz.

Dean Michelle DePass of the New School's Milano School of International Affairs, and Tishman Professor of Environmental Policy and Management, opened with a call to action regarding race and place in America. Carl then spoke about race, environmental justice, and building sustainable and equitable communities.

The evening transitioned to a panel discussion, initiated by a reading of passages from the book by community leaders:
  • Sharon Alpert, CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation
  • Dr. Paloma Pavel, Co-Founder of Breakthrough Communities
  • Rinku Sen, Senior Strategist and former Executive Director of Race Forward, Publisher of Colorlines.com
  • Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT For Environmental Justice
  • Professor Emeritus Ron Shiffman, Pratt Institute, Founder of the Pratt Center for Community Development
  • Kweku Sumbry, drumming student at the School of Jazz (The New School)

The packed audience spanned many generations and cultural backgrounds, providing a diverse range of questions that made for a memorable evening of solidarity and ideas exchange.


New School Professors Darrick Hamilton and Mia White; Dr. Paloma Pavel; Carl Anthony and Dean Michelle DePass , during the "Race and the Environment" class at the New School
on Nov. 13.
Watch the livestream video of the New School book launch event from Nov 15.
Kweku Sumbry from the New School's School of Jazz opened the program with lively African drumbeats.
Carl with Professor Mia White, Dean Michelle DePass, and students of the New School, at the "Race and the Environment" lecture on November 15.
Check out these images of Carl and Dr. Pavel on the EARTH CITY RACE tour in New York!
The Pratt Institute in Brooklyn hosted a special event with Dr. Paloma Pavel and Carl Anthony, put on by Ron Shiffman , Professor Emeritus at the Pratt Institute's Graduate School of Architecture, and founder of the Pratt Center for Community Development. We look forward to returning in the spring, with Eddie Bautista of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
The Ford Foundation invited Carl Anthony and Dr. Pavel to host a workshop
with their staff, exploring issues including the intersection of incarceration, affordable housing and sustainable communities. Pictured: Don Chen, Director of Equitable Development at the Ford Foundation.

The Rockefeller Foundation invited Carl and Paloma to speak with the
100 Resilient Cities network, where in addition to exploring community-building strategies, they explored the relationship between poverty and climate change ( World Bank "Shockwaves" report) . Pictured: Otis Rolley, Regional Director of City and Practice Management for North America.
Carl was interviewed by host Chris Hedges for "On Contact," to speak about spatial apartheid and racism in urban design. Here, Dr. Paloma Pavel, Carl Anthony, and videographer Richard Page were on the set of "On Contact." Air date TBD in January.
Dr. Paloma Pavel and Carl Anthony were interviewed by Laura Flanders of the Laura Flanders Show , along with attorney Andrea Ritchie, on KCET/LINKtv and Free Speech TV . Air date TBD 2018!
Hello Brooklyn! Carl Anthony and Dr. Pavel spoke with members of the community during a reading of The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race at Bluestockings Bookstore . Shoutout to New Village Press team members
Jourdan Sayers and Mia Gorla for their invaluable work on the book!
In between events, Carl and Dr. Pavel were able to take in the sights of New York City, including the dance performance Step Afrika , and "The Migration," an art installation inspired by Jacob Lawrence.
Carl and Dr. Pavel explored the monument and museum dedicated to the African Burial Ground National Monument, which is featured in the opening of The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race .
A Year of Gratitude and Partnerships
Support Indigenous Lands! The Amah Mutsun Tribe
The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band is comprised of the descendants of the indigenous peoples taken to missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz on the central coast of California. Juristac , now known as Sargent Ranch, is their most sacred site, translating to "Place of the Big Head." Big Head was home to the tribe's spiritual leader, Kuksui, and four Indian villages, where the most sacred sites of the tribe were performed. Currently, there is a proposal to allow sand and gravel extraction on Juristac. We ask you to stand with us to protect Juristac, and join the Amah Mutsun to take a stand against the desecration of sacred land for government profit.

SIGN THE PETITION TO PROTECT SACRED LAND:
Amah Mutsun Website: http://amahmutsun.org
Carl Anthony and Dr. Paloma Pavel were guests on KALW 91.7FM, in conversation with host Renee Kemp ! They spoke with Renee about the hidden interplay of race, the environment, and urban design concepts in Carl's book, The Earth, The City and the Hidden Narrative of Race .

Listen here:  http://kalw.org/term/carl-anthony#stream/0

Breakthrough Communities was invited to speak to the team at the California Emerging Tec hnology Fund , celebrating CETF's 10th anniversary of accelerating the deployment and adoption of broadband services to California's underserved populations.

In 2017, Carl Anthony and Dr. Paloma Pavel joined the Equity Work Team of California's Environmental Literacy Steering Committee , a 30-person collaboration of education leaders, state agencies, and key outdoor education stakeholders who seek to provide equitable access to environmental education to every California
K-12 public school student.
2017 Bioneers Conference

At the 2017 Bioneers Conference in October, Carl and Dr. Pavel spoke as part of a plenary panel, called " Environmental Literacy for All ." Our panel featured: Raquel Pinderhughes (San Francisco State), Craig Strang (Lawrence Hall of Science), Paloma, Carl, Nina Simon (Bioneers), Juanita Chan (Rialto Unified School District), and Jose Flores (Brawley Union High School District).
We would like to thank Alison Cagle from Ten Strands , the organization that serves as project director of the Environmental Literacy Steering Committee, for her support during the Earth City Race Tour. She provided logistical, event coordination, publicity, communications, and operational help to our team this fall - including creating the newsletters! We are grateful for your creative genius and dedication.
Check out this message of solidarity from CNN commentator and former Obama White House official Van Jones, who wrote a foreword to
The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race.
We thank you, Van!

PRAISE FOR
The Earth, The City and the Hidden Narrative of Race by Carl C. Anthony

 "The destruction of the earth's environment is the human rights challenge of our time. The most devastating effects are visited on the poor, those with no involvement in creating the problem. A deep injustice. Among its many treasures, this book offers solutions that lead with equity for the benefit of all."
—Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus, social activist Capetown, South Africa

"As global citizens, understanding and weaving together our individual and collective stories is critically important at this juncture in our planetary survival and future. Thankfully, Carl Anthony, a leading environmental voice, helps us chart the way forward in his important new book, The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race! The fact that “environmental justice” and “environmental racism” are part of our contemporary lexicon is due, in no small part, to Carl’s pioneering efforts." — Danny Glover, actor and humanitarian
WITH GRATITUDE TO OUR NEW YORK HOSTS:
Sharon Alpert, CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation
Don Chen, Director of Equitable Development at the Ford Foundation
Michelle DePass, Dean of Milano School of International Affairs at the New School
Lynne Elizabeth , Founder and Director at New Village Press
Otis Rolley, Regional Director of City and Practice Management for North America,
100 Resilient Cities, the Rockefeller Foundation
Peggy Shepard, Co-founder and Executive Director of WE ACT For Environmental Justice
Ron Shiffman, Professor Emeritus at the Pratt Institute

And to each and every one of you who has made this journey with us.
We look forward to our next adventure with you!
Building Transformative Communities Resource:
All In! Learning Action Guide
The All In! Learning Action Guide
is an interactive, inclusive resource for community groups, educators, and activists are working to bring the vision of the Earth City Race book into action. We now have an 8-page toolkit that highlights key concepts from the Guide and the Earth City Race book. Please contact BreakthroughCommunities@gmail.com or call (510) 652-2425 for educational tools and experiential workshops.