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• Bio on Mr. Jordan
• The Conservation Fund official site
• Mr. Jordan talks to Tavis on NPR

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Tavis: Charles Jordan has been active and passionate as an advocate on the environment during his 30-year career in public service. In 1985, he was appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan to the President's Commission on the American Outdoors and was later appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the American Heritage River Program. He is now the chairman of the Conservation Fund, a leading national conservation nonprofit group. As I mentioned earlier, the first African American to lead a national environmental organization. Charles, nice to see you.

Charles Jordan: My pleasure.

Tavis: Glad to have you in person, in the studio with us.

Charles: It's good to be here.

Tavis: Let me ask you how a brother gets so passionate about the environment. And this obviously is not something-- You're not a Johnny-come-lately here. As I mentioned, 30 years you been working on the environment. How'd you get so passionate about the environment?

Charles: Well, I started in urban parks and recreation, and that really is where my heart is. Conservation right now just--you know, it's like the tools of your trade. It's what I'm doing right now. But it's exciting, and I saw the potential there to really have an impact on our communities. That's why I like urban parks, because you're closer to the people, and you can work with young kids a lot better. And so, I've done that for 30 years. When the conservation movement opportunity came along and I understood what they were all about, I saw that we were in the same business, and I saw an opportunity for a partnership.

Tavis: Tell me what the link is between the Conservation Fund, which most of us and certainly people of color have never heard of--so I'm assuming there ain't a whole lot of brothers running around the building. So tell what the link is between the Conservation Fund and your passion, which is urban parks. I mean, link this up for me.

Charles: OK. Well, the Conservation Fund is one of the, as you indicated, premier conservation organizations, and we are chartered to protect land and water. What makes us a little unique from the others is we are dual chartered. One of our charters is for economic development, and that's the connection.

Tavis: Ah, I see. OK.

Charles: That's the connection. And all--but I was influenced heavily by John Muir, who was a conservationist, and he said, 'I went out into the wilderness, and when I picked up something, I discovered it was connected to everything else.' And that is true, Tavis. Everything is connected. And so, what they're doing over here, protecting millions of acres of land--when I say, 'they'--all of the conservation organizations. We are protecting millions of acres of land, and what's gonna happen to all those lands? You know, who's going to inherit those lands? 85% of all Americans live in and around cities, so who was serving those young kids? Me in urban parks. The people that they are counting on for the future to take care of all this land and to continue to set aside, they're with me in urban parks. So I realized there's a connection there, and so I just need to move to another arena and see what influence I can have there and tell the whole story. And so, that's what the Conservation Fund has allowed me to do. It's to tell the story my way.

Tavis: When you say, 'tell the whole story,' what part of the story heretofore has not been told?

Charles: From a black perspective. The same story, but it has not been told from a black perspective. Growing up in America and growing up in the South, I couldn't go to a park. I mean, if they had a park, I couldn't go. I didn't know anything about parks, didn't know anything about conservation. All I know is I used to get some little oilcans--'cause I lived near an oil well--and shoot the little cans into big cans. I never had a gym or a basketball court, couldn't do any of that.

Tavis: That's a shame, 'cause you're too tall to not have had access to a basketball court.

Charles: But I made up for it.

Tavis: Yeah, OK. Ha ha ha! You about to be in the NBA or something if you had a basketball court.

Charles: If I had gotten started. But I didn't. So I didn't know anything about parks until we migrated to California. You know, it was go West back in the fifties, and we went West, and I lived on a reservation there, and there were no parks there. There was no grass there. There were no basketball courts there. And so, it just--I started working and finally got into college by playing basketball. That gave me an opportunity--

Tavis: So you found a park, then?

Charles: I found a park. And when--when I was a junior. And started playing basketball, got a scholarship, went to Gonzaga, and finished there, and went back to Palm Springs and started working in urban parks and recreation, only because it was the only job I could get in Palm Springs, as much as I love it. When I went back, there were no professional blacks, not even schoolteachers.

Tavis: See, I was impressed all these years by the work that you've done. Now I'm really impressed. You started playing basketball as a junior, and still get a college scholarship to Gonzaga.

Charles: Yeah. Well...

Tavis: That ain't bad. You start playing, got a year to go in high school, and you get a scholarship to go to play college ball.

Charles: It's true. God is good.

Tavis: All the time. Let me ask you what you think that young people in the inner city--and I want to follow this up with something else that hits me just now. What do you think that young folk, even today in the inner city, are missing? I hear your story, but what do young folk today miss when they don't have the access to appreciate what the environment, what nature has to offer?

Charles: OK. And I know what worked for me, growing up in a matriarchal family and not having the man around the house and all of those challenges that we say young people face. Now that I'm working on a book, I have discovered so much about me that I didn't--all these years, I really didn't know all about me. I've discovered as I look back, because in working on the book, you gotta go back and see what influences really cause you to be like you are today. And as I looked back on the things that I really remember when I was young, it's amazing what events occurred in my life that are currently working on my present, and I'm sure they're going to influence my future--and the things that I didn't have. But I had some things that our kids today seem not to have, and that is a connection with my past.

Tavis, you realize our kids are born into a society, and they are told that they're equal, and when they encounter discrimination for the first time, they really don't understand it. They don't know how to deal with it, and so sometimes--and this is not justifying the violence--sometime, they strike out because they don't know how else to deal with this. You know, they really don't know. And we, unlike our Jewish brothers and sisters, once we left the South, we forgot the history. We did not teach our young people about their history, and I can do that through conservation, because all of this land that we're buying, most all of that land is very special land. Something went on there. That's why we want to protect it is because something special happened here, and if we can protect that land, if we can start getting our young people to take advantage of those millions of acres that they own--those are public lands, which means that the kids in Los Angeles own that land that we're setting aside in West Virginia. If they can start visiting those lands--and there's something about being at the place. If we could take them there and let them know what really went on here and how important it was the role that we played, maybe they will start seeing their life differently.

Tavis: I can link it up another way. Well, actually I can take an example of how you're linking it up another way to the struggle of people of color, namely African Americans, for this point at least, when I say to you Marvin Gaye. You know where I'm going with this. One of your projects has to do with protecting--

Charles: With Marvin Gaye.

Tavis: Talk about that.

Charles: Well, see, that's what we can bring to the movement--we, people of color--is because we realize how important that was. And Marvin Gaye, when he asked the question, 'What's Going On?' We were just so busy rolling to the music, we didn't even listen to the words. We didn't--you know, if we had stopped and read his words, just maybe somebody would have taken it on and tried to answer that question.

Tavis: He was talking about the environment.

Charles: That's right. That's right. But we didn't. We were just grooving to the music. And now that Marvin Gaye is gone, we're now reading his words, and we find out that brother was deep. He really is very deep. And so, we discovered that he had a home that he grew up outside of, um, D.C., out in Southeast, Eastern--

Tavis: Anacosta.

Charles: Right, in Anacosta. And it's a triplex. It was a low-cost housing, and he was as a part of the triplex. And I met with my staff, and we talked, and they were excited and said if we can preserve this, we can relocate it to public land, which was right next door. Public land was next door. This was on private land, and they wanted to build a mall there.

And so, they had started working out there, trying to convince the city and the developers to hold on to this, give the Conservation Fund a chance. And the very day that I went out there, Cheryl Gaye, Marvin's last wife, I think, asked if she could go with me, and of course. And we went out, and before we could get up there, that day is when they demolished the unit. And it was a--it was a somber moment there for a little while. And then we saw another opportunity. Why don't we get the bricks? And we picked up about 100, maybe 110 bricks to bring back, and Cheryl came back so excited. She was--I mean, she was really excited, and she said she wanted to get involved, and she said, 'I know what it means, my resources and my time, but I want to get involved, and I want to do something.'

And the idea of selling bricks, selling, you know, bricks from Marvin's home and taking that money, putting it back into that area. Because it's a beautiful area. Got a beautiful park there, a little stream running through there. And we want to do something there that young people, when they go there, they can hear the story, and maybe, maybe then, maybe in that crowd, someone will start addressing the question of what really went on. Yeah, they will ask, 'What really went on back then? Why didn't--Charles, why didn't your generation respond to this? And maybe we would be farther along if you had.' It's just so many connections there.

Tavis: We could talk for hours, and I don't have that kind of time, unfortunately. Let me close with this. I thought a second ago to ask you what it is that so many folk, not all, but so many folk in the movement don't get about the urgency, the need to reach out to people of color and pull them into the movement. Let me not ask that and flip it and ask this question. What is it that you would say to people of color about why and how it is that they have to start to value the environment and involve themselves in the issues, whether or not somebody else ever asked them to come to a meeting or to get involved?

Charles: OK. Well, very quickly. Uh, for some reason, things aren't working. We've been running programs for hundreds of years trying to help other people, and it's a noble cause, but something isn't working. We're still losing a lot of our young people. We've got to look at nontraditional partners, and we gotta look at those who share a vision and a mission, and the Conservation Fund does share that. The Conservation Fund cannot win this one and leave out 73 million people. That's how many blacks and browns in America, 73 million. What is our population? Around 230-something million. You can't leave out that many people out of a movement and expect to win that movement. So we are natural partners. And now the Conservation Fund is listening, and they want to help, so people of color, what we've got to do is open our arms and our ears and listen. Doesn't mean jump right in, but listen and take the tools that they're using, because those are effective tools.

Tavis: Well, you got me listening. Nice to see you, man.

Charles: Nice to be here.

Tavis: Charles, thanks for coming out and talk to us. Charles Jordan. Love that brother. Up next, talented actor Aaron Eckhart. Stay with us.