The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race

Carl Anthony is an architect, regional planner, and social justice leader. He is currently co-founder of the Breakthrough Communities Project and Visiting Professor at the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. Anthony is revered as the founder and former executive director of Urban Habitat, one of the country's oldest environmental justice organizations, known for pushing the mainstream environmental movement to confront issues of race and class. He still serves on its board of directors.

With colleague, Luke Cole at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Carl Anthony published and edited Race, Poverty and Environment Journal, the only environmental justice periodical in the country.

From 1991 through 1997, Anthony served as president of Earth Island Institute, an international environmental organization founded by David Brower. In 1993, Congressman Ron Dellums appointed Carl Anthony Chair and Principal Administrative Officer of the East Bay Conversion and Reinvestment Commission. The commission was charged with overseeing a national pilot project to guide the closure of 500 military bases in the US, to re-envision the role of the National Laboratories, and to implement the conversion of five military bases in Alameda County.

From 2001 to 2006, Anthony served as director of the Ford Foundation's Community and Resource Development Unit, where he led the foundation's Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative and their Regional Equity Demonstration in the United States. More recently he served as a Visiting Scholar/Ford Foundation Senior Fellow in the Department of Geography at the University of California Berkeley.

In tribute to Carl Anthony's lifelong devotion to policy initiatives addressing racial and economic equity, the Gamaliel organization created the Carl Anthony Legacy Award in 2013. The award is given annually to honor those dedicated to working for social and environmental justice.

Mr. Anthony has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Planning and the University of California Colleges of Environmental Design and Natural Resources. He has been an advisor to the Stanford University Law School on issues of environmental justice. Mr. Anthony has a professional degree in architecture from Columbia University. In 1996, he was appointed Fellow at the Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.