Eco-Hero Stages Tibet Protest

Majora Carter after her Olympic duties were cut short.

Photo: AP Photo Ron Harris

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A hero among environmental insiders, Majora Carter made a name for herself in a bit of jujitsu protest Wednesday.

Given the chance to run with the Olympic torch, the South Bronx activist pulled a Tibetan flag from her sleeve to condemn China's human rights abuses there, according to the New York Daily News.

"I was expressing my right as an American citizen using freedom of speech in support of people who don't have it," Carter told the Daily News. "It just became really clear to me what was going on in Tibet and I wanted to do something."

Carter has spent her career fighting for people who had little political clout. Her efforts to improve environmental conditions – and with them, human health – in the South Bronx have won her recognition around the world, including a 2007 Rachel Carson award from the Audubon Society. She has persuasively made the case for environmental justices – that no community should be saddled with excessive pollution because it is poor or populated by people of color.

Majora Carter, in her own words:

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