Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins – who succeeded Van Jones as CEO of Oakland-based Green for All this year as Jones went to Washington to become President Barack Obama’s “green jobs czar” – was in Washington herself today for a meeting with Obama Administration officials on making green jobs available to the widest possible cross-section of America.

Also in the meeting were Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson; Energy Under Secretary Kristina Johnnson; Hip Hop Caucus president Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr.; and leaders of Green the Block.

A joint effort of Green For All and the Hip Hop Caucus, Green the Block is a new campaign to engagevulnerable communities in the transition to a 21st-century economy via education, legislative advocacy, private-sector development and youth activism.

“Green the Block is a movement to build a clean-energy economy where everyone has a chance to succeed,” said Ellis-Lamkins said in a White House news release. “That starts with making sure that those who are often left out and left behind – low-income people and communities of color – have a voice and a presence in this movement. These communities also need a fair share of the economic, social and environmental benefits this transition is creating.”

Said Yearwood: “Clean-energy investments will create more job opportunities than spending on fossil fuels, like oil, natural gas and coal. The building of a clean-energy economy in the United States can serve to create new pathways out of poverty for the 78 million people in this country who are presently poor or near poor.”