Friday February 27th was the first of three days the Washington DC convention center would play host to the Powershift Conference 2009. The environmental conference featured lectures, workshops, job opportunities, and performances by recording artist Santagold and the legendary Roots band.The conference’s goals were to spread awareness about efficient methods of using current resources, moving toward more sustainable resources within the next ten years, and dispelling the myth of “clean coal”. Keynote speaker Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, Ca made sure to point out the error many people make, including President Obama, with assuming that “clean coal” will alter emission levels in the atmosphere. “Clean coal?... oh, yes that’s a brilliant idea, maybe after that we can have unicorns to harnessed to our vehicles to pull us around,” Jones said sarcastically to the assembly of liberal college students and community organizing non profit workers. Honestly, It wasn’t my type of crowd, and if it wasn’t the colorful language wrapped around progressive ideas- the Howard University fashion show would have been the only thing would have kept my attention.

“Green is the new Black”, said Amal Bennett-Judge, organizer of the Howard fashion show, as she floated around the changing room making last minute arrangements. She continued to explain that in the fashion world, black is never out of style- in turn, our world must forever keep this green movement in style. Who would think to find deep concepts in a room full of mirrors and cosmetics?

The boutique beauty in the dressing room was a visual contradiction to the grittiness of the conference itself. People turned the convention center floor into a bed/breakfast/ Frisbee field during all hours of the day. In reference to people’s hygiene, activist and comedic environmentalist Reginald James asked, “is halitosis an environmental concern.” And Martin Macias Jr, a journalist and activist from the south side of Chicago stated, “the revolution would not be deodorized.”

But all jokes aside, the conference hit home as I played fly on the wall to a conversation between Darryl Perkins of the Hip Hop Caucus and Holmes Hummel-- acclaimed professor of environmental justice at the University of California Berkeley. That's when it dawned on me. This is real. No colorful language needed. These two agreed that a meeting was necessary, as inner city America, the demographic of the Hip-Hop caucus’ primary focus, needs to be the leader of this change-not just part of the pack.

Fracheyez Jackson, a rap artist and activist from Oakland, Ca, eloquently stated that his work in the “green” movement was here to “revitalize the urban sprawls of America”. His statement came as I left the DC downtown area, and passed boarded up houses and vacant los that could potentially be gardens. We were riding the 70 bus headed uptown on Georgia Ave. We passed the one grocery store within a 15 minute radius, and I thought about the statistics that had been thrown out at the conference: “your food travels 15,000 miles to get here”, "if oil prices skyrocketed today- you wouldn’t be able to eat next Friday”, and “ your local grocer is three days away from having empty shelves.

Self sustainability is what Oakland activist Van Jones spoke about, it is also what Martin Macias Jr. does regularly on the South Side of Chicago. So if self sustainability is what the inner cites of America are calling for, then doesn’t it make sense the change would start in the urban setting of the Nation’s capitol? I laughed, that’s just another joke, as we got off the bus at Howard University, the only college in the District of Columbia without a recycling program.

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