Remembering James Redford

1962 – 2020

James Redford, our Co-Founder, Board Chair, and chief storyteller, passed away on October 16, 2020. 

Compassion, humanity, generosity, and a love of life. These are the phrases we often hear when asking The Redford Center community how they remember James Redford and his storytelling. Even in the darkest of times or around the most complex of topics, James always dared to ask: “What can we do to make things better? What can we do to help each other?”

We’d like to thank and acknowledge Karen Pritzker, Jen Bradwell, John Behrens, Brook Holston, Nicole Amyx, Kevin Otte, Daniel Marracinno, Jill Tidman, Jon White, and James’s son Dylan Redford who directed the short film, Remembering James Redford, for coming together during a time of grief to honor James’s life in this beautiful way. We also reflect on his legacy of environmental and social justice storytelling in a special tribute book. 

Our work continues in honor of everything that James stood for and all that he envisioned for our collective future.

There are a million issues, a million problems, a million challenges that we all face. And we all know that it can feel overwhelming at times… But the truth is that very often there are so, many things that if we just understood them better and we just felt connected in a more emotional human way to an issue – that in and of itself could help propel a meaningful change.

James Redford