In July of 1990, Houston hosted two global economic summits. One was the yearly G-7 conference, which comprised the countries of France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. The attendants for the G-7 summit included the likes of President George HW Bush, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher¹. Hosted at Rice University, this world summit marked a pivotal moment in global history following the Fall of the Soviet Union and what would come next for the development of global capitalism. Before the world’s most prominent leaders gathered at Rice University, on the other side of Houston at the Astro Village Hotel, a group of local and international politicians, academics, activists, and populist leaders gathered to meet at an alternative summit called The Other Economic Summit (TOES) series, which started in 1984 and was the first in the United States². Their purpose was to protest against the global influence the G-7 had on poverty, unequal development, human rights, and the environment. 

TOES brought together representatives from the seven of the poorest nations at the time: Haiti, Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nigeria, and Nigeria, as well as representatives from Native American tribes to bring awareness to the struggles of their nations and how the G-7 profited off their poverty through globalization, and to create a far more sustainable economic system rooted in human rights and ecological sustainability. The summit also hosted many prominent populist leaders and individuals, such as the father of environmental justice, Robert Bullard, Reverend Jesse Jackson, member of the African National Congress Max Sisulu, and future President of Brazil Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da Silva, to name a few³. Despite the significant figures in attendance, Houston’s TOES  received less media coverage and prominence compared to the G-7 conference; yet, The Other Economic Summit not only created bridges between the world’s marginalized communities and Houston but also had an immense impact on the environmental justice movement in Houston and the world.

The Other Economic Summit (TOES) rose from a series of United Nations conferences that addressed environmental issues, housing, women’s rights, food, government, and economics in the first half of the 1970s. By the second half of the 1970s, many of the largest industrialized countries, United States, France, Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, and Japan, lost interest in this dialogue, thus leading to the creation of the Group of Seven (G-7) summits in 1975 for non-communist nations to address global economic concerns. Many third-world nations, academics, and activists who resided in the G-7 nations felt that the G-7 countries were not offering practical solutions and responses to the world’s economic and environmental crisis despite dominating worldwide in high energy consumption and pollution⁴.  Thus, in 1984, The New Economics Foundation of London organized the Other Economic Summit with the assistance of the Right Livelihood Awards. The summit was founded primarily by British activists, including the likes of environmental activist Jonathon Porritt, economists James Robertson⁵, Schumacher Society Council member Alison Pritchard, and founder of the Right Livelihood Award Jakob von Uexkull⁶. The goal of TOES was to build an “international citizen coalition for a new economics grounded in social and spiritual values to address concerns the G7 consistently neglects–such as poverty, environment, peace, health, safety, human rights, and democratic global governance⁷”.  From 1984 to 1987, TOES hosted all summits in the United Kingdom, and a delegation was sent to each G-7 summit⁸. 1990 marked a significant milestone in the organization’s history as it would be the first time The Other Economic Summit would be hosted in the United States and the first time TOES would host delegates from seven of the world’s poorest peoples in protest of the G-7⁹, which was emphasized in its title “The Voice of the People for a Change.” 

TOES 1990 was organized in part by Larry Martin, general coordinator, and TOES-Houston coordinator Prentiss Riddle and was set for July 6-8 and divided into three parts¹⁰. The first day, titled “A Changing World: Listening For A Change,” included a welcome from TOES President Alan Gussow and the Populist Leaders' Summit. Prominent speakers for the Populist Summit included future President of Brazil Luiz “Lula” Inancio Dasilva, African National Congress chief economist Max Sisulu, former Presidential candidate of Mexico Cuauthtemoc Cardenas, Colombian General Secretary of the Colombia Unida Party Dr. Adalberto Carvajal-Salcedo, and Reverend Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow Coalition¹¹. Local Houston and Texas speakers invited to the summit included the likes of Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Hightower, Tony Mazzocchi, secretary and treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, Rice University Professor Stephen Klineberg who led the “Houston as a Microcosm” workshops for all three days of the summit, activist Maria Jimenez, and Dr. Robert Bullard. The first day also included the second annual summit of the world’s poorest peoples, with representatives from Bangladesh, Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nigeria, and Native Americans from the United States¹².  The second day, titled “New Perspectives on Ecology and Economy,” sought to offer sustainable solutions to current economic systems rooted in environmental and social justice while addressing the environmental injustices faced by the third world and oppressed people. The summit's final day was titled “Democratizing the Economy” and focused on creating an economy rooted in social justice. The final declaration was made among the seven poorest nations on this day. 

TOES began its three-day summit at 9:00 am on Friday, July 6, 1990, at the Astro Village Hotel¹³. Following a vocal performance from the Awty International School, Sissy Farenthold, gave the attendees a welcome to Houston, followed by an opening address from TOES president Alan Gussow. In her opening address, Farenthold spoke about the devastation of the recent Phillips and Arco chemical plant disasters by stating, "Houston is the most dangerous place for industrial workers¹⁴.” She also relayed Houston’s struggle to many third-world countries by saying, “More babies die in the Fifth Ward of Houston than did in General Pinochet’s Chile¹⁵.” Following the welcome to Houston and opening address, Martin Khor Kek Peng, Max Sisulu, and Native American activist Winona LaDuke spoke during the “A Changing World: Realities and Possibilities Six Representative Perspectives.” It was also at this panel that Max Sislulu of the South African organization the African National Congress made the statement that “Apartheid kills people and the environment¹⁶.” At 10 am, the Populist Leaders’ Summit of the Americas commenced to assess international problems and their effects on working people¹⁷, to frame a people’s agenda for the 1990s, and to create proposals for actions that would address major issues faced by working people. One of these speakers for the Populist Summit was future President of Brazil Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, who advocated for the cancellation of international debts of Third World Nations as he believed that “ they have already given so much to the industrial powers” and leader of Mexico’s Democratic Revolutionary Party Cuautemoc Cardenas who argued that creation of Western economic blocs like the United States and Canada led to further Third World exploitation.

Following the Populist Leaders Summit of the Americas, the first day of the summit had a variety of panels with a wide range of topics that included a summit on grassroots organizing strategies, feminist perspectives on the global economy, the promotion of Gandhian Economics, economic justice for immigrants, and the creation of a peace economy¹⁸. The first day of the summit also began the first of the three panels, “Houston as Microcosm,” hosted by Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg, focused on Houston’s reputation as a “free market city” and the city’s connection to global problems such as wealth disparity, human rights abuses, and economic exploitation¹⁹. The first day of the Summit ended with a recorded speech by Reverend Jesse Jackson. While initially billed as a featured speaker, Jackson was unable to attend TOES 1990 due to a “family crisis in Chicago²⁰” In his speech, Jackson told the TOES participants that “they had the power to help transform the world if they used their sense of purpose and commitment to make things happen for a better world. I stand with you to keep hope alive²¹.” 

The second day of the Summit was titled “New Perspectives on Ecology and Economy.” Its main focus was on assessing current economic systems and their contributions to environmental devastation and the intersectionality of the environmental justice cause to other global causes on Saturday, July 7, 1990²². The second day of the Summit broke out into various sessions that included topics such as the ecological problems faced by the Third World, ecological sustainability, the environmental devastation caused by the chemical industry and its effects on dumping pesticides in Third World countries and placing its facilities in low-income minority neighborhoods. The second day of the Summit also emphasized the efforts of the environmental justice movement in Houston, with key panels being moderated by known figures in the movement like Tony Mazzocchi of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, in which he discussed his superfund for workers to protect displaced workers and the environment following the Phillips and Arco disasters²³. Also present at this panel was the author of Invisible Houston and father of Environmental Justice, Dr. Robert Bullard, who pointed out that “there is no difference between social and environmental justice. There is only justice and injustice²⁴.” Dr. Bullard would also contribute to the second “Houston as Microcosm” panel titled “Focus on the Environment,” in which the panel focused on how Houston, being the “oil capital of the world,” represents how the city has enabled environmental injustices and devastation for the sake of economic growth²⁵. The second day of the summit also included a tour of the Houston Shipping Channel titled “Bush’s Boston Harbor” following the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to list the channel as a “toxic hot spot.” The tour consisted of showing participants sites of contamination, lessons from marine and toxic experts, and interviews of members of fishers and seafood harvesters in the Galveston Bay²⁶. 

The summit's third and final day was Sunday, July 8, 1990. It was titled “Democratizing the Economy,” and it emphasized finding a more sustainable economy rooted in social and economic justice²⁷. The third day began with a working brunch to draft statements of what was discussed at TOES 1990 to the G-7 summit, which was followed by morning workshops that ranged from topics such as humanistic economics, Third World debt, Indigenous people’s rights, and workers' rights²⁸. At 4 pm, TOES, with the help of Houston Non-Violent Action, Black United Front, and All Peoples Congress/Peoples Anti-War mobilization, organized a protest against the G-7 summit and marched to the Kirby mansion in Houston, the headquarters of the G-7 Summit committee²⁹. The main factors the protesters were aiming to accentuate were alleviating hunger in the third world, using money to invest in education, fighting poverty, and ending the destruction of the environment and Indigenous peoples' communities³⁰. 

The final “Houston as a Microcosm” panel was titled “Community in Need.” It included the likes of immigration activist Maria Jimenez, social historian at the University of Houston Bob Fisher, director of the Coalition for the Homeless Ellie Collier, and founder of Freedman’s Town Association Gladys House as panelists³¹. This panel used Houston to study how global economic conditions affect human needs and how Houston's unfettered economy leads to social inequities faced in Third World countries, such as poverty, unemployment, violence, and homelessness. After the final “Houston as a Microcosm” panel, the final declaration of the Second Annual Summit of the Seven Poorest Seven Nations was drafted in which it stated, “It must be recognized, and we affirm, that the capitalist model has failed to meet the basic needs of the majority of people on the planet. An explosive social and economic crisis grips much of the world today, immersed in social injustice and lack of true democracy³².” The demands of the seven nations included items such as the cancellation of the foreign debt, the elimination of military aid, recognition of the rich cultural diversity of the peoples of the world, and the abolition of colonialism in all its forms³³. 

The Other Economic Summit in Houston drew 1,000 participants from 40 countries³⁴. One of the TOES founders, James Robertson, called the TOES 1990 a “landmark” in which he emphasized the notable features of the populist presidential candidates from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the importance of the “Houston as a Microcosm” in representing the local problems of the city and ultimately came with away with the conclusions that the TOES movement was gaining more momentum and the importance of appealing to the mass media for TOES’ cause³⁵. When it came to emphasizing the importance of “Houston as a Microcosm” sessions, Robertson spoke on the interest of the Texas media and many of the TOES participants and organizers coming from Houston, as well as TOES participants participating in local marches, including a protest against GATT’s impact on lower health standards and small farms at Rice University with country singer Willie Nelson and the organization Texas United³⁶.” The Other Economic summits would continue past Houston, from 1991 to 2004. The final known TOES summit was again in America in the city of Brunswick, Georgia, with the theme of “Globalization and Empire,” but would face a plethora of issues when it came to organizing, in large part due to the post-September 11th attacks hysteria and immense enforcement against protestors on the part of the George W. Bush administration³⁷. 

Ultimately, The Other Economic Summit in Houston was a pivotal moment in the history of grassroots organizations. Populist leaders came together to fight for human rights, environmental justice, and sustainable economic reform while emphasizing Houston’s own struggles. Globally, the summit allowed many members of marginalized communities and third-world nations to express their frustrations with the exploitative actions of global economic systems, provided a stirring critique of neoliberalism, and brought forth many ideas to build a more sustainable financial system rooted in social and environmental justice. Many of these ideas of creating a more sustainable system were prominent in policies like the Paris Climate Agreement policy, which provided financing to developing countries to help mitigate climate change and build up these communities, as well as the mobilization of the environmental justice movement in the twenty-first century with widespread reforms such as the Green New Deal and state organizations like the Robert Bullard Center for Environmental Justice at Texas State University³⁸ gaining traction³⁹. As recently as 2024, one of the speakers of the 1990 TOES summit, President Lula Da Silva of Brazil, unveiled a pact for ecological transformation in Brazil approved by all three branches of the government with concepts from the Houston Summit being present such as environmental justice, sustainability, and human rights for all⁴⁰. The Other Economic Summit's impact on Houston is crucial; it demonstrated the power of intersectionality in multiple movements, and its lessons are, to this day, necessary to ensure justice for all people under a more humanistic economy. 

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