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the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Ashoka Fellowship and the World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leader” designation. Time magazine had just named me an environmental hero. If the administration needed someone to coordinate its green jobs work, I was among a handful of people with both the standing and the qualifications to do so.
    Still, I was uncertain. I told my wife, “I would have to leave you and the boys here and move across the country. You wouldn’t be able to relocate until summer, and you would have to quit your job to do so. How would that work? Plus, how am I going to find a worthy successor for Green for All on this kind of timeline?”
    She listened patiently. “Yes, it would be inconvenient for us,” she acknowledged. “But look at the Obamas. How inconvenient has this whole thing been for them? They have those two little girls. Think about how hard that must be. If the president’s team thinks you can help in any way, I don’t think we have the right to say no.”
    She was right. I agreed to submit myself for vetting, while I tested the waters to see if I could find a successor. Within days, Ihad found a rising star in the labor movement who was better qualified than I was to lead a national organization. When Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins said she was willing to take the reins, I took that as a positive sign and maybe some divine encouragement.

    I WAS STILL MULLING THE JOB OFFER , when the date of Obama’s inauguration dawned. A good friend of mine, who was a top fund-raiser for the campaign, had gotten me two good tickets to the ceremonies.
    On the night before the swearing in, I called my aunt, who had ridden from Tennessee up to Washington on a bus full of elderly church ladies. She had no plan to do anything but stand on a freezing street corner somewhere, hoping to be near a jumbotron. When I told her that my friend had a seated ticket for her, two hundred yards from Obama himself, she screamed into the phone, “Anthony!?!? Don’t do that to me!!! Don’t fool me, now, boy!!!”
    (Anthony is my birth name; Van is a nickname from college.)
    I said, “No, ma’am. I am serious. My good friend knows Mr. Obama, personally. So I told my buddy about you and our family, and all we went through integrating Madison County. And he said you must have a seat. He said you cannot be standing. So I am sitting here, with your ticket in my hand.”
    She started sobbing. “I’ve been praying to Jesus about this!!! I prayed about this!!! Thank you, Lord, thank you!”
    I found my aunt in the dark, Washington, DC, cold at 6 a.m. on Inauguration Day. We made it through security, and we sat together throughout the ceremony. She never said a word. She just watched silently, with her head held high. Afterward, we made our way back out through the hundreds of thousands of people. She was still silent. She had never been to Washington before. I got herto a good place where she could see the White House from a prime angle.
    She stood there staring at it. “My, Lord, Anthony. It is even more beautiful when you can see it for yourself. When you can just look at it with your own eyes.” I agreed. As we turned away, she grabbed the back of my jacket, so as not to lose her balance. And I heard her say, softly, to nobody in particular, “And now it is ours , everyone’s. It belongs to everyone here. God almighty!”
    I hadn’t even told her about the job offer. But I decided then and there to take it.

    ON MARCH 9, 2009, the White House announced that I had been appointed to the position of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). CEQ is a part of the executive office of the president of the United States.
    CEQ chair Nancy Sutley released the statement: “Van Jones has been a strong voice for green jobs and we look forward to having