Naomi Davis, through Daughter’s Trust, a consulting firm, and BIG: Blacks in Green, a non-profit, promotes green, self-sustaining, mixed-income, micro-villages and targets robust black participation in the emerging green economy.

As an attorney, entrepreneur and activist, Naomi serves as a bridge between communities and developers in the design and construction of neighborhoods that foster business opportunity, civic activism, and healthy lifestyle.  One such project is the Ton Family Underground Railroad Living Heritage Farm & Village on the Little Calumet River, a proposed tourism destination which features cultural and Calumet assets, and supports new traditions like its Annual True North Underground Railroad Festival.

The paradigm for green economic development in African American communities designed by Naomi is jobs-driven, featuring development without displacement, local energy production and resource management, affordable and conservation land trusts, a spectrum of green homes, LEED-ND design and green TIF’s, and is grounded by neighbor-owned businesses, including environmental remediators and green realtors.  This is a pioneering approach.

The design engages churches, schools, community groups, and businesses as collaborators, encouraging them to embrace green collar jobs-careers-and enterprise and green-village-building as the answer to soaring unemployment, violence, school drop-outs, incarceration, and health ills disproportionately impacting communities of color.  It invites them to return to their great legacy of environmental stewardship, and to the common sense of yesterday’s self-sustaining neighborhoods.

Through BIG, Naomi produces Chicago’s first weekly green television broadcast (The BIG Show), supports Chicago GreenFestival as a community partner, collaborates with Chicago’s Department of Environment on blue cart recycling and climate change initiatives, and is partnering with other locals to launch BIG Bike Riding & Repair and Diesel Engine & Veggie Oil Cooperatives – all efforts designed to help link the African diaspora, leverage its resources, and create a new generation of environmental leaders.

Presently serving on the boards of the Illinois League of Conservation Voters, Climate Justice Chicago, The Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort, and on the Environmental Justice Advisory Group of the Illinois EPA, Naomi was recently appointed to the editorial board of a new peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Justice.  She is a former board member of Deeply Rooted Productions, IVI-IPO and president of Lamda Alpha International/Student Chapter at John Marshall Law School, the alma mater where she is presently an LLM candidate in Real Estate Law.  She received her Bachelor of Arts in Speech & Drama and English from Fisk University in 1975 and her Juris Doctor from John Marshall in 1981.  Naomi received Lt. Governor Pat Quinn’s 2007 Environmental Hero Award, and the 2008 Chicago Magazine Green Award.

Naomi is the granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers, raised with her brother in Queens, NYC, the daughter of a merchant shipman and his wife, a public school teacher.  Love and respect for the land, and a strong desire to contribute to community life were core values which have inspired her mission.  In all her work, Naomi is devoted to creating opportunities for the disadvantaged that honor both the bottom line of finance and the priceless virtue of heart.