Joy Keys chats with Majora Carter about her book Reclaiming Your Community

Majora Carter is a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. She is responsible for the creation and successful implementation of numerous economic developments, technology & green-infrastructure projects, policies and job training & placement systems, and is currently serving as Senior Program Director for Community Regeneration at Groundswell, Inc.

Her ability to shepherd projects through  seemingly conflicted socio-economic currents has garnered her 8 honorary PhD's and awards such as: 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs, Silicon Alley 100 by Business Insider, Liberty Medal for Lifetime Achievement by News Corp, and other honors from the National Building Museum, International Interior Design Association, Center for American Progress, as well as her TEDtalk (one of six to launch that site in 2006).

Majora was born, raised and continues to live in the South Bronx. She is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science (1984), Wesleyan University (1988 BA, Distinguished Alum) and New York University (MFA).  

Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in A Better One (On sale: February 1, 2022,) In this profoundly personal book, Carter writes about her brother’s murder, transforming a local dump into an award-winning park, her experiences as a woman of color confronting the “male and pale” real estate industry and what she calls the “nonprofit industrial complex,” and more. Carter candidly shares her successes, her setbacks, and her struggles as a woman of color confronting the mostly “male and pale” real estate and nonprofit and philanthropic establishments.