The New Civil Rights Movement: Social Justice, Community Organizing, and Youth Leaders

okay so we're at five past the hour just want to say welcome to everyone and a major thank you to our panelists for 0:56 joining us today this is our panel on the new civil rights movement social justice 1:03 community organizing and youth litters so we're going to focus today our conversation around that particular topic 1:08 and so we'll just start off with you know just laying out some of the themes that we'll be discussing today introduce our 1:14 panelists and then dive right in to ask some of the questions that i'm sure you all are really curious to hear and so to start i'll just introduce 1:20 myself my name is brian maxey i'm a partnership manager at the center for academic innovation we power and 1:26 develop some of the courses that you see i mentioned all the courses that you saw mission online i'm also i have some experience in my 1:32 background in community organizing which kind of hopefully you know connected me to some of the panelists in this course and i've worked closely 1:38 with barry checkout in the past um in developing some of these courses and so it's a great opportunity for you 1:44 all today and with this panel as well and so we'll start off just looking at what we'll be discussing today 1:50 and we'll get into the questions pretty soon and so when we think about some of the themes 1:55 or topics we'll be looking at we will be examining uh 2:00 course and core concepts around youth empowerment in a diverse democracy as the united states is 2:05 we'll also be analyzing kind of models of how young people create change and then 2:12 we'll also identify problems and issues that young people face in some of our conversations so we'll go through a few different themes and 2:17 discuss them today i'm going to start off by you know reading some of the bios of our 2:22 panelists just so you can you all can understand some of the folks you'll be hearing from today 2:30 so first we have lindsey matson lindsay is a community organizer lindsay is a macro social worker who 2:37 currently works as a community organizer with congress of communities in southwest detroit she manages the 2:42 organization's youth programming including a youth leadership council racial and social justice education 2:48 college preparation and the construction of a new youth-driven community center throughout her career lindsay has been 2:53 politically active and believes that social workers should advocate for policy change which benefits their clients and the 3:00 communities in which they serve in addition to her work with congress of communities she is also actively involved in organizing and voluntary 3:06 work in detroit especially around immigration and education justice initiatives so everyone if we can give lindsay a 3:13 warm welcome and thank you for joining our panel today um we also have 3:23 kayla mason uh kayla is the los angeles director of the hidden genius project kayla is a native of los angeles and the 3:30 site director of the hidden genius project in los angeles she operates at the nexus of program operations coalition building 3:38 and organizational development she is driven by the opportunity to influence systemic change for 3:43 opportunity youth and has overseen community growth opportunities for local and national organizations 3:49 caleb believes in building youth intrinsic power and is a proud alumni of south central youth and power through 3:55 action a youth coalition that builds campaigns to improve the conditions of south los angeles schools 4:03 we also have here with us celina miranda celina has spent her career engaged in work that enables underserved 4:09 communities to access the resources and opportunities they need for a better future with a focus on youth development 4:16 she is currently executive director of hyde square task force a youth development organization located 4:21 in the jamaica plain neighborhood of boston hstf's hyde square task force mission is 4:26 to amplify the power creativity and voices of youth connecting them to afro-latin 4:31 culture and heritage so they can create a diverse vibrant latin quarter and build a just 4:36 equitable boston and of course last but not least we have our professor barry checkaway 4:43 barry is a university of michigan professor and internationally recognized scholar and practitioner of youth empowerment 4:49 neighborhood development and community change his projects and publications draw on work with grassroots groups 4:54 community agencies and government programs in the south bronx detroit the mississippi delta 4:59 central appalachia and in south america europe africa and the middle east and he's had support from the war world 5:05 health organization the ford foundation kellogg foundation and other institutions he's worked with the white 5:10 house and he worked in the white house here in the u.s in 1990 to launch americorps and served 5:17 as the founding director of the michigan neighborhood americorps program and he also led the edward ginsberg center for community service learning on 5:23 u of m's campus um and also you leads youth dialogues and race and ethnicity 5:29 and so with all that our esteemed guests i would love for us to you know to dive into some of these questions and so the first question i'm 5:36 going to share with the group today it's going to be a question kind of for everyone so that way you know anything that i've missed or didn't get right in 5:41 the bios you can share there as well um and then we can kind of start there so the first question that we have today 5:48 is going to be um if you can each yes if you can each 5:54 speak a bit about yourselves your respective journeys and how that motivates your organizing work 6:03 anyone can start 6:11 and i can pick if it's easier since i see lindsay in my top left corner so lindsey if you'd be willing to share they also introduce you first 6:18 sure hi everyone um thanks for having me on barry and brian and everyone else who's 6:25 helping out today um i really appreciate it and i'm honored to be up here with selena and 6:30 kayla as well um so i guess a little bit about myself so i started 6:36 organizing actually when i was a youth i didn't know that that was what it was called at the time but um now i kind of 6:42 realized that i'm really i had a similar experience to some of the youth that i 6:48 work with now um and i try to bring that into the work there were some mistakes made 6:53 and there were some also really excellent things so like i was in uh i was a queer student in high school um in boise idaho it was 7:00 rough um and we started organizing around lgbtq issues um and uh so yes we started organizing 7:09 lgbtq issues um really got involved in uh statewide campaigns to add sexual orientation and 7:15 gender identity to the human rights act um in idaho um and things like that and 7:20 i think through getting involved in some of that work it made me think about um also racial justice organizing and being 7:28 a white person who is doing work um that is around racial justice or justice social justice in general 7:35 um i have a bachelor's in social work as well as a master's in social work um between undergrad and grad school 7:42 i uh worked as a case manager with teenagers on parole and probation um helping them uh trans who were like 7:49 in foster care residential settings um helping them transition back home with families um 7:54 and it was really interesting work and and really um you know i enjoyed the work and and 8:01 but it also like kids didn't wake up one day one day and decide to commit a crime right 8:06 um and so i wanted to when i came back to grad school i wanted to work on the preventative side 8:13 of um of that type of work and and try to change the systems that were really pushing young people and 8:20 their families into the juvenile justice system so working around 8:25 racial justice and immigration um you know trying to uh curb sex trafficking and things like 8:31 that that were ending people up and getting in the juvenile justice system and so when i came back 8:36 i did macro social work um specifically community organizing and policy advocacy 8:42 um and i guess that's kind of where i'm at now i was really lucky i um moved here to to michigan to go to u 8:49 of m um but didn't feel like ann arbor was gonna be a good fit for me so decided to live in detroit instead 8:54 um and did a a program where my field placement was in detroit and 9:00 they hired me on after i finished um at congress of communities uh so yeah so now i do the youth 9:06 organizing work and i think back about some of when i was a young person and some of the mistakes possibly that were made that made it difficult for me and i 9:12 um tried to uh i guess like make sure that i'm in a supportive role 9:19 for the youth as well as kind of an educator role um i guess i can get to that a little bit later but uh yeah that's i guess 9:24 what i what i've got to share on on myself for now yeah thank you so much for that news we 9:30 really appreciate that sharing anyone else would like to continue um and share some of the experiences 9:36 sure i can jump in hi everyone thank you for having me excited to be a part of this i grew up 9:43 in south central la and was very committed to creating change 9:50 early on um similar to lindsay i was 14 years old when i decided that i wanted to do something 9:57 about the trend of pipelining south la youth to vocational trades instead of college 10:04 opportunities and helped um towards the end of a long successful campaign called the a3g 10:12 requirements if you're familiar with california there's an a3g curriculum that is mandated for high 10:18 school students so being a part of that victory really helped set the tone and trajectory for 10:24 my life um i pretty much stayed in education reform um i've been in education reform for the 10:31 past 12 plus years now and the opportunity to really think about 10:36 what systems look like how to modify systems and really influence public 10:43 policy led me to the school of social work at the university of michigan where i met 10:48 barry and really really saw firsthand my field placement was also in detroit 10:54 similar to lindsay and i spent a lot of years 11:00 um actually ended up staying in detroit for four additional years because of that that work that we were doing um 11:07 primarily to focus on the school to prison pipeline trend which if you don't know it is a disturbing 11:13 trend that disproportionately impacts black and latinx young people um towards being system impacted or 11:22 involved behind bars in some way and you know that that for me i think really hits home to 11:29 how i even got into the work i'm doing now right which is the next iteration of my grassroots 11:36 organizing foundation it's thinking about how do i do system building and system change 11:43 work with organizations that are creating opportunities and tech skills to have another 11:51 conversation and really shift the societal narrative around young people and my work at the hidden genius project 11:58 is the organization i'm currently at the hidden genius project you know we're training and mentoring young black men 12:05 in technology creation entrepreneurship and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities 12:10 so that is for me the environment of social work it's really thinking about 12:16 both at the systems level how do we support young people and navigating 12:21 not only the world around them but influencing the world around them it's a little about me 12:27 yeah thank you very much kayla really appreciate you sharing those experiences and and you know speaking to some of those um 12:33 and kind of rich detail i think we also have barry and celina so whoever wants to go first and share some 12:38 of your experiences and journeys great sure i'm happy to go next um so selena miranda hi everyone happy 12:47 to be with you all i um you know i wish that i had started uh as 12:53 lindsay and kayla you know early um in my in my journey uh focused on youth organizing but that 13:00 was not the case in terms of where i grew up those opportunities were not available to me 13:05 but you know definitely my lived experience has informed all of my work i am an immigrant i came 13:12 to this country undocumented at the age of 10 and i was from el salvador and i was 13:19 raised in santana california which is a primarily immigrant community and i am the 13:26 daughter of two you know hard-working parents my mother has a third grade education my 13:33 father has an eighth grade education um and so you know from very early in my 13:40 life i learned you know what it means to survive uh with very low paying wages and 13:48 but a lot of ghanas you know a lot of resolve to make sure that um they could survive and and and move 13:54 their their family ahead um i was fortunate and really allowed by 14:00 luck to attend smith college in western massachusetts which is how i find myself 14:05 in boston now where i received a top-notch education 14:11 and a ticket to opportunities that made me question the social racial and economic 14:17 inequities around me so i went to college thinking i was going to follow one career path and came out of college with 14:25 a completely different plan for myself and all based on the fact that i saw so much inequity 14:30 around me um so i decided to pursue graduate studies 14:36 in social work sociology and education part of my um i think dissatisfaction 14:42 was uh while i was a smith was noticing how few of us right had quote unquote made it and that 14:49 inequity just really started to inform the path that i took since and um i spent over 10 years after 14:58 graduating from my master's in social work masters in education and macro social work by the way is my 15:05 focus i spent over 10 years focused on working in philanthropy and one of my 15:12 first stops in philanthropy was actually at a foundation that focused on supporting youth organizing and i think that's where i 15:20 started to go deeper and really focus on on the power of organizing and the role that young people have 15:25 to play in community and systems change and so after spending uh you know over 15:32 10 years in philanthropy and also completing a doctoral my doctoral studies with a 15:38 focus on youth development but really thinking about this concept of youth voice and the role that young people have to play 15:44 not only in communities but also in organizations i decided that it was time to take my 15:50 work and put it into practice in a different place and that's how i ended up at high school task force and the reason why i ended up 15:57 at high school task force is the steep commitment that services are not enough while we need to support our 16:02 young people and ensure that they have what they need to be able to get through the journey of adolescence 16:08 and into adulthood we also need to make sure that we're raising their social consciousness and 16:14 that we're tapping into the power that they have as young people to make change and so that's how i've 16:19 been sort of committed in working on elevating youth voice in power um in particularly through 16:25 youth organizing and i'll i'll stop there for now 16:31 so i'll i i'll take it i'll take it from here 16:38 it's interesting as a community person i usually don't talk about myself 16:46 i mean i'm usually in the back of the room and if things are going well 16:54 what you don't have to talk about yourself because everybody else is enjoying the experience um 17:01 i have always been a community activist from i think probably 12 or 13 or 14 years 17:10 old i grew up in a 17:17 small probably 96 percent 17:22 white community small town in massachusetts 17:30 uh the town had the big social class differences 17:36 to the level that on the top of the hill was the high street 17:42 and then there was the middle street and then there was the low street 17:48 and we were somewhere between the middle street and the low street so i grew up being very conscious 17:56 of social class as long as i can remember 18:01 my parents were deeply suspicious of colleges and universities and all of 18:08 these things i was a first generation i am a first generation person going to college no one 18:15 i don't think i knew anyone in college um when i was growing up 18:24 my favorite mentor resigned from being a teacher 18:31 because he was being harassed by the school board i um this was at age 15 i 18:40 organized a petition drive in the community probably more than 60 percent signed it 18:47 and half of the school board then resigned and the person who was my mentor stayed 18:54 on that was my first victory and feeling that i could have some power 19:00 and i was just a little kid at the time um i grew up in college in the 60s 19:09 i also went to a school that probably was the male counterpart of smith 19:14 small liberal arts college most of the people were uppers like i 19:21 but i i'd grow up with those forever um it was hard but growing up in the 60s 19:29 was a different time and it really enhanced 19:35 the work that i did um i guess uh one more thing is i i chose 19:42 to become a college teacher i didn't know what else to do my my 19:48 heroes were my teachers and uh it looked good to me 19:55 that you could still be a community worker and you'd have a job where you could be 20:02 with other community members so that's what i've done ever since i realized 20:09 people ask me how i think of myself i think of myself first as a community worker and secondly 20:16 as a college teacher so that's that's a little bit from me 20:25 thank you so much barry and cindy i didn't get to say it on on the air but thank you both so very much for sharing those stories 20:30 all of you for sharing those stories it's really rich and helps kind of you know inform you know the rest of this conversation 20:36 so then thinking about kind of this topic and this idea of a new civil rights movement and young people um i was hoping we could shift gears to 20:43 think about some of the stories of our young people and some questions there and so just maybe to start a little bit of framing 20:49 if we think about young people and you know this even speaks to some of what barry just shared they're oftentimes at the the vanguard 20:55 of movements very describe the story where he was at the manga movement as a young person in his school 21:01 and so in these movements for social change each of you as panelists work very 21:06 closely with young people in your community organizing work and so with this in mind can you each share 21:12 reflections that broadly kind of illustrate some of your experience in youth centered organizing 21:17 i think some of you've done that already so it could be just a few of us um just experiences you know rooted in 21:22 your youth centered organizing that'll really demonstrate some of what you've built 21:36 yes please yeah thank you it's great of course uh so i for me and my experiences uh 21:44 youth-centered organizing involves money and policy change 21:50 uh and so i helped young people in detroit secure a 21:57 federal uh grant in the amount of 1.5 million dollars 22:02 to adopt a youth violence prevention model called ceasefire in chicago we at the 22:09 time of 2012 to 2014 we were just seeing a lot of 22:14 really uh lack of opportunities and resources available for young people and so if you're not in school and 22:21 you're on the streets then like what is there to do right so we helped push for 22:27 funding um so that we could create more jobs and opportunities over the summers 22:32 when young people are out of school and don't have summer school um so that's one i would say is really 22:39 thinking strategically about how young people sit on a board of directors 22:48 how young people could manage youth participatory budgets 22:53 right how funding that is allocated for young people um happens throughout 23:01 organizations and cities across the country and yet young people there's no accountability for young 23:06 people to evaluate those programs right so those were some of the issues that i spent a lot of uh my earlier 23:14 grassroots community organizing pushing and influencing and then really got to inform and 23:21 influence public policy through relationships built across the state of michigan um and so 23:28 you know the the work that i was doing we planned an 80 mile walk from detroit to the state capitol uh 23:34 which barry was a great supporter for thank you very we i drove 23:40 you yeah exactly you yeah you did you were there uh we partnered with the department of 23:47 human services and um through all of that work 23:52 right because it's a lot of behind the scenes which i'm sure lindsey will share with you that no one gets to see 23:59 but from that work and partnership with dignity in schools which is a national collective of youth organizers 24:05 in the aclu michigan we were able to in student advocacy center didn't want to forget perry we were able 24:13 to modify zero tolerance policies in the state of michigan so i think it's really important anytime 24:20 we are creating space for young people to lead we actually let them lead and um you know at the 24:27 hidden genius project we have a really amazing uh leadership model so our leadership model 24:34 is meant to empower young people by first allowing them really a safe space to explore their 24:41 identity who they are within their local community and environment who they would like to be within a 24:46 larger societal context and so through this process we engage our geniuses from an asset based 24:53 perspective whereby they continually view themselves as change agents 24:59 who possess limitless potential to make transformative impact more broadly so that's a little 25:05 bit about my work and how i am taking a lot of my foundation in grassroots organizing of the 25:11 the skills learned at the university of michigan school of social work and really complementing that to do 25:18 effective work here at the hidden genes project 25:24 yeah so if i can jump in there with another sort of example so one of our so just to give a little 25:31 bit of background in terms of height square task force our our core program the program that i'm going to be referring to it's called 25:37 hoveness and axion or youth in action and that program has three key components and the first is 25:43 using afrolight in arts so dance music and theater as a way i like to think of it as a way of raising social 25:49 consciousness really thinking how do you use the arts to sort of ask some of the questions that will get 25:54 our young people sort of motivated and started to think about sort of power and uh really thinking about systems and 26:01 thinking about change um and then in addition to the performing arts focus we also have 26:07 sort of the youth development piece right we gotta make sure our young people get through school begin planning for 26:12 the future and sort of are on that trajectory to to enter adulthood successfully 26:18 but the third component is our civic engagement component and through that civic engagement component we have a subset that become our youth 26:24 organizers of of the organization um and through this model actually one of our latest or most 26:31 recent campaigns was one where our young people went after a billionaire so jeremy jacobs who is 26:39 the owner of the bruins and uh the arena where the bruins and the celtics play so the td 26:45 garden is uh is the arena and what our young people the how this started actually was 26:51 your young people asking the question of why it was that in our neighborhood there had been a 26:57 promise of a youth asset and the promise had been made 15 years ago and we still had no 27:04 rec center that had been built so our young people started to inquire and then kept getting the pushback of 27:10 there isn't enough money so fortunately one neighbor gave them a tip 27:15 and the tip was that the owners of td garden had been by law had been expected to 27:22 hold three fundraisers per year and the proceeds of those fundraisers were supposed to go back to the state 27:28 the commonwealth so that they could invest in rec centers across the state 27:34 and in fact this piece of legislation was passed at a time um thinking 27:40 specifically about our neighborhood so that was supposed to be a recipient of that all those of those 27:46 funds and um you know here we were 20 some years later and uh guess what the td garden hadn't 27:53 paid anything and so our young people sort of uncovered that piece of legislation started doing some research started to 28:00 ask the legislation of the state to actually report back on how many how much how much money had they gotten 28:06 and so they started to do you know mobilize their peers mobilize the community and uh write letters etc and 28:14 through all those that effort they were able to secure 4.6 million dollars and td garden was 28:21 forced to pay back right to pay back to the community what it owed and now they are being held accountable 28:28 for those fundraisers on an annual basis but this is just to give you sort of one quick example of 28:34 how young people found this piece of information and quickly mobilize and begin to push and really you know 28:40 sort of call the state go after sort of the state and say you haven't been doing your job and also obviously a billionaire who 28:47 says you've gotten away without doing what you're supposed to do um and i gotta say one of the my 28:52 favorite stories out of that while the wind was important i think it was talking to one of our seniors who was involved in that 28:59 campaign and as she was reminiscing and sort of thinking about what she had learned 29:04 uh realizing that she said to me in a car ride as we had just finished a tv 29:10 interview on this campaign i was saying i didn't realize the power that i have as a young person to make change and i'm 29:17 taking this with me to my college campus and i will not stop and i think that's the part of me of 29:23 youth center organizing that i think it's so critical is making sure that you know as adults we step back and we 29:28 really let young people sort of lead and you know find their power find you know elevate their voice 29:34 because their voice is there but sometimes as adults we can drown out sort of what young people are saying to 29:39 us and really moving to the back and allowing them to lead 29:47 i love listening to the stories and i'll just add one one or two little ones 29:57 the present work that i'm involved in is called youth dialogues on race 30:03 and ethnicity in metropolitan detroit and we work with groups like lindsay's 30:11 with a whole series of interactions in i suppose we would call it 30:17 intercultural work detroit uh prides itself in being one of 30:23 our most segregated cities which means that there are people of different 30:30 racial and ethnic uh backgrounds of african asian 30:36 uh white european middle eastern and latin american descent they're all 30:42 spread around um but for the most part they're enclaves so it's a segregated 30:48 area so this project tries to bring people together across their differences to be able to 30:57 learn how to talk with people who are different from themselves so we would have someone from uh 31:05 a community like your selena who actually may have grown up in the com in 31:12 the neighborhood but has never been to another neighborhood like an all-white 31:17 upper middle class neighborhood across town we want to bring people together that's the model 31:23 um the young people some of them became leaders they self 31:30 they became uh self-selected leaders 31:35 and they've worked on projects that's what we're doing right now is finishing up with a small group of youth 31:41 leaders but they they were dissatisfied with the education that they were 31:47 receiving that it wasn't complete they weren't in the books 31:52 so they worked with the state civil rights commission to put together a resolution 31:58 for all that all public school students in michigan should have 32:04 civil rights content and diversity content in their learning 32:09 [Music] michigan is not easy detroit 32:14 is not like the rest of the state um when you propose something about quote 32:20 diversity uh people vote against it um 32:26 mostly from our rural areas uh just add the following is is that the 32:32 youth the phrase youth centered i like very very much 32:37 but i have come to believe more and more that young people 32:42 should not be expected to solve the problems that were not of their making without 32:49 adults to be side by side with them 32:55 i used to use the term adult allies but for as i've learned i think it's 33:02 less powerful than adult partners that we're partners together and 33:09 some of the best organizers are young people who can work with adults and adults who 33:16 can work with young people it's a kind of a bridging type person but i would just say that in the 33:22 conversation uh part of youth the challenge of being a youth worker is 33:30 how do you be how are you involved in empowerment of youth or with youth but you still bring 33:38 something to the table as an adult and you're trying to navigate that ground 33:44 ultimately it's about the young people but what role can adults play in this 33:53 thank you so much barry and i think lindsay were you about to share something yeah i mean i just i'm listening to 33:58 everyone's experiences and stories and it's like really making me think 34:04 a lot about um you know sharing about how there was a this thing that was written into into 34:10 legislation uh where you know the big developers are supposed to give back and how community benefits 34:15 um work or don't work in various ways how when you know probably at the time when when 34:22 that uh development was coming in it was a win right we got this piece put in 34:27 um and then it kind of got overlooked and we see that in detroit a lot too with the gentrification and and really 34:34 similar you know our i forgot what year's name was but we've got dan gilbert here and and he owns an insane amount of 34:42 buildings in detroit um and there's con like there's always this like idea like he's gonna give 34:48 back he's gonna you know do this stuff and but but then there's the accountability part and so i think and and kayla you know you 34:54 sharing about um you know making change to uh and i think you were probably part of 35:00 it sounds like the the legislation to create restorative justice practices in michigan schools 35:06 and so now we're running into where are they actually doing it right are they like is this happening right and so i 35:12 think with organizing and and with young people um it can be really cool but it can 35:17 also be really hard because those youth that were part of that work in the beginning are then you know have moved on to other things 35:24 when it becomes time to to hold folks accountable and so i do think that's a way that adults can can play a role in youth 35:30 organizing of of being that thread of here's how this group of youth got to 35:36 this point and then here's you know where we are at now and what do you all think about that um and so i was just you know thinking a 35:42 lot about about accountability and about you know when there's a win how do we celebrate and also 35:49 um without i don't know without like making the youth jaded i guess because i feel like sometimes i'm so like 35:55 um it's not going to work out sort of thing and so how do we celebrate those wins and also um move forward in in holding folks 36:02 accountable especially you know big big developers billionaires all of that who are gonna do everything they can to 36:08 like get out of um that follow through um so i don't know i mean i'm just thinking 36:13 and i think right now um to connect back to kayla sharing about 36:19 the the um trying to interrupt the school of prison pipeline or the school prison nexus um i think right now we're 36:27 you know detroit's still one of the um only school districts in the country that has its own police force 36:34 um in the schools so it's not like the detroit police are in the schools it's like the detroit public schools has their own 36:40 police force um and so right now we're doing a police free schools campaign um and it's tough right like um 36:49 parents and and ever and teachers and everyone have been so conditioned to think that police mean safety 36:55 even in cities where we know that police don't mean safety um and so right now the youth are really 37:01 at the helm of that and and doing a lot of um really difficult work around talking 37:07 to their parents which can be harder it's easier to talk to peers or a teacher sometimes even like in a public forum than it is to 37:13 talk to your your own families or people that are really um really stuck but they're having those individual conversations 37:19 and also since i work with latinx students um and i'm a white person like having a 37:24 lot of conversations around um tackling anti-blackness um and and those sort of things um this 37:31 summer has been a lot of that work as well as movement on the police free schools campaign which we've been working on for 37:37 quite a while um so i think that's some of the stuff that i'm working on right now and also just like 37:42 some reflections and connections about how all of the work is is so similar and maybe some areas that we 37:49 need to um put a little bit more effort into as well around how can adults support youth 37:55 driven work and and like barry said like be partners um one of one of the youth that barry and i 38:01 work with um just did a video about um youth voice right and she started off 38:07 with just like i'm tired of hearing that you want to hear my voice right because i want to see action i want to see 38:13 me at the decision-making tables you know i don't want to just see um i don't want you to just listen to me 38:18 i want you to incorporate that and let me make some of those decisions because i can be more than just someone who who 38:24 talks well um and so you know she went over roger hart's ladder of youth and at that 38:32 top rung of the latter is actually youth adult partnerships um and because that can be tougher and but 38:39 it is more sustainable to have those partnerships rather than like just handing you the project and and 38:44 letting them like run with it um i mean they can run with it but an adult can be there to to be alongside 38:52 and and to share our the things that we've learned too right so um yeah that was a really good video 38:58 that she made and we're going to be promoting it so we'll we'll get it up on barry's website 39:03 the youth civil rights one right here as well those are some amazing stories i 39:09 mean just i'm just going to pull out a couple like gems that i feel like came from each of your stories i heard from kayla 39:14 it's kind of this idea of letting young people lead adults get out of the way um or even as cnn said something similar 39:21 adults be stepped back elevate their their voice and then even as you close here lindsay 39:26 not only just the voice this idea of actually having young people's voices but also let them 39:31 be the decision makers let them be at the table to help influence those are amazing um and even barry with 39:37 a really powerful story of how these students are able to get changed at the state level that these are all amazing stories 39:43 um so we do have a couple of questions from our learners here so i was thinking we 39:48 could maybe take one of those and then we also wanted to make sure we touched on the kind of um 39:54 ever present and even more in the pandemic reality of social media and how that how that impacts here as well um so 40:01 if we have time for that so maybe if we could start with um let's see 40:09 see we have a question here about um there's one that's specific maybe we can think about how to uh that one later but there's one about later generation use 40:16 i'll read the question and then we um if maybe one of us to speak to this question um whoever feels most moved 40:21 um and this is a question or or more i don't want to limit us this question is uh how can we the later 40:26 generation youth uh do something really that really matters and be a part of a campaign any advice on how to behave and and 40:32 beyond so this is a general question but like can any inspirational thoughts or responses you all have when young person is trying to 40:38 get involved 40:49 there are there are so many ways i don't think there is any one way 40:57 because young people who are people just younger than 41:04 we are maybe uh all come in different shapes and sizes but they're 41:10 in a different state everyone is in a different stage of development 41:15 and there may be someone who is just starting up 41:20 and maybe they don't they talk slowly or they've been conditioned to not say 41:27 very much at all because when they grow up their parents do all the talking for them 41:34 but then there may be some young people who are they're almost natural activists you 41:41 wonder where they get it but at the same age they're already more quote different or i don't want to say 41:49 advanced but they're just at a different place um i 41:55 two images come to mind one is if you're talking about how to 42:02 motivate a young person sometimes i just put my hand on their 42:09 shoulder and listen to them now these days i don't put my hand on 42:15 anyone's shoulders just not what what america does apparently 42:21 the other is one of our youth organizers high school student i said to her as she was doing a great 42:29 project what is there any way i can help you 42:35 and she looked at me and she said just be there for me 42:40 and i'll i'll never forget that i didn't know what that meant but i just want you to be there for me 42:46 she never asked me very much about the help but she just wanted someone there to 42:51 be supportive i think there's no one way that this process takes place yeah and 42:59 if if i could just add a little bit you know um we start our our model starts with 43:05 8th graders so it's 8th through 12th grade and i wouldn't i i would echo sort of 43:10 what you said barry which is sort of the developmental sort of process right that that's important 43:15 and one of the things that a question i often ask is like you know when you get up in the morning what's the one thing 43:21 that if you think what just really makes me upset right it makes me angry and if you can tap into 43:27 sort of that and that's sort of where you can start to ask questions and just to give a quick example we had 43:32 our group of eighth graders who uh that question was started to post to them and one of them said you know what what 43:38 really gets me upset is the fact that my uh neighborhood basketball court doesn't have nets 43:45 okay well let's run with that okay so the basketball court doesn't have nets and then and then you know made a 43:51 comparison and said well i go to brookline which is a neighboring community well off those those basketball courts 43:59 they have nets so we started talking about that right and from there they realized that the owners of that 44:05 basketball court that they were upset about was actually the city all right so who in the city do we call 44:10 can we start making phone calls can we start writing the emails and they did that and guess what about two months later 44:16 that basketball court had nets and now it's like you have a win and then you say okay what else what 44:22 else gets you upset and let's go from here and so really for them to start gaining that experience and that knowledge 44:28 in a in a way that really spoke to them and i think that was important because you know if sort of adults will say well 44:34 let's organize around the fact that you know something else but the reality is that sometimes they're not ready to go there 44:41 and we gotta start sort of meet them where they're at and i think that's critical and it's important and i don't think that's only with 44:47 uh young people i think it's just as you start organizing and start getting people to sort of mobilize in that way i 44:53 think it's important but i think i share that example as just one that we continue to go back for and 44:58 remind ourselves that we need to meet our young people where they're at thank you so much for that scene and 45:04 that's such a vivid and powerful example and it really illustrated you know kind of like how how to how to really do it 45:09 so thank you so much um so since we're getting you know now toward the end of our time i wanted to kind of drop this other question one 45:16 about social media and kind of give it some global context to start since we have folks from around the world and so this question is 45:22 kind of in the sense of if you think about you know various movements and hashtags and how these can kind of power or 45:28 affect um you know community organizing i'm thinking of examples that are really 45:34 powerful now hashtag black lives matter hashtag me too hashtag march for your life here in the us 45:39 and we also have other global examples um like hashtag the arab spring which was almost 10 years old at this point 45:46 hashtag elenau in brazil which has to do with uh anti-misogyny movement in brazil 45:51 hashtag fees must fall in south africa the umbrella revolution in hong kong so thinking of these various kind of like 45:57 social media movements what roles do social media play in the work that you all do and what are 46:03 some of the benefits limitations and challenges in using it 46:15 i think um for for myself i think um i mean we've always used social media um 46:22 to promote events and to do these things but it's not necessarily where we organize right um but now 46:30 with kovid um it's kind of pushed us all to um rethink 46:37 how weak like this is what we're where we're at right now right um and so you know we've seen uh people 46:43 go into um zoom board meetings of of the school board uh with all the same profile picture you 46:49 know all the same picture or background or something like that right um we had an issue with a school closing um 46:56 that we were we were fighting against um a couple months ago um and then also with the again the police free schools 47:02 campaign so i think stuff like that you know can be really um really helpful uh i mean i'm learning 47:09 and i'm just talking about covet mostly right now um if that's okay but um like i'm learning so many new tools that 47:16 we can use um you know and i also think social media um while it's hard to like 47:21 organize entirely on social media it does help with promoting campaigns and right now like we're having 47:27 connection that's um sometimes even larger than it is like in person 47:32 um and so you know uh i think uh i think that social media can 47:38 be a really good place for political education as part of your organizing work um and so we had um some of our youth 47:45 do like political education weeks around different topics so we did immigration we did um youth activism we did or like i think 47:51 it was called youth voice actually being more critical of that now but um you know different 47:57 topics where each you know using tick tock they made tick tocks about these um these issues uh to help educate and 48:03 in a fun way an exciting way like taking some of the tick tock challenges that they've been doing 48:08 um and and applying them to the social justice and racial justice issues that they care about um 48:15 you know canva i think is a really good tool um for flyers and and creating a 48:22 good high quality instagram or facebook posts um and it's free and um nonprofits can 48:28 also get like a free pro version of it um you know concept board it's another like online thing where 48:35 we just did a um week-long youth retreat last week all on zoom and it was a way to still do like our um 48:42 we did some icebreakers on concept board we did um like you know like when there's a 48:47 retreat you know i think probably most of y'all do like a little envelope so you can leave notes for each other affirmations that kind of 48:53 stuff so we did that on concept board um you know we've adapted our icebreakers uh 48:59 sly google slides can do automatic closed captioning as part of it when you have the slide up 49:05 and you just click the cc button so i think um i think right now it's it's what we have i don't want to send 49:12 young people or adults or teachers or anyone out and risk them getting sick and so i think with social media even though it's 49:18 not my favorite way to organize i'm getting a little sick of zoom meetings um but it it's been really more effective 49:24 than i thought it was going to be and it provides more accessibility for so many folks i think you know 49:30 disability rights activists are like we've been saying that we could do these things online for a long time now and we've been left out of movements 49:37 um and we've been left out of campaigns and so um you know now i think this is gonna help us all think about how we can truly be 49:44 accessible even when a lot of us do go back like in person um and trying to 49:49 um whether it's transportation issues or um ability or anything like that just being accessible so 49:55 i think yeah social media is definitely helpful um for getting and and for for global too for global or 50:03 not national um work and and really learning about the campaigns that are going on in different places 50:09 um but i think with covid uh there's a lot of lessons we want we should take back um yeah that are both positive and 50:16 negative i guess i would just add to um in addition to 50:22 that you know the great thing or the benefit of um really having this opportunity 50:29 is the accountability factor right so just having companies and 50:36 organizations have a public uh stage if you will to really acknowledge 50:42 uh the harm that they've placed on communities or the opportunities for 50:48 communities and um one i i did say i would mention um and it's another 50:53 hashtag at the list brian already gave you but uh one of our young people 50:59 you know i talked with them and and they introduced me to the launch of the hashtag pull up or shut up campaign 51:06 which is from pull up for change um so uma beauty founder sharon shooter 51:11 she started a call to action that has been really holding corporations accountable 51:18 to release the number of black employees that they have at corporate and executive levels 51:23 and so with social media there's this opportunity to almost demand 51:29 that companies complete you know a breakdown of the number of people of color or 51:35 black people on staff um excluding phil retails store level employees right like who 51:41 is ultimately making these decisions and um sharon shooter i just definitely always 51:46 have to acknowledge founders of these opportunities because campaigns require a lot of work and 51:53 movement behind the scenes and i think right now we're seeing a lot of black lives matter 51:58 which you can i it's kind of interesting like you can say black lives matter 52:03 publicly but if you're not showing us that black lives matter with your narrative with your 52:09 home with your organizations with your internal staff then how do we know this isn't just 52:15 brand activism so that's something that we are helping and supporting our young people as they 52:21 build their tech skills and really leading this conversation and holding holding some of those companies that 52:27 that we all love accountable thanks so much for that kayla this is 52:33 that was a really powerful powerful way to kind of bring us near the clothes and so with that you know just thinking about all 52:39 these there's so many layers we could peel apart and dive in so much deeper um and i wish we had more time to do 52:44 that but one place that the learners you can do it is in the course and in the discussion forum so make sure you're doing that 52:49 and so there's like a final word or phrase that you know each of you wanted to share to kind of wrap us up um with the learners should 52:55 that would be great and it could even be i'm thinking of one learner that i had a question early on a word or phrase that's like a strategy or some kind of 53:02 motivation for folks to go out and do when they leave here maybe that's a way to frame how to wrap up 53:20 all right we're being a little shy oh so i'm gonna get us going uh but i don't have necessarily one word but i guess 53:27 all i would say is that looking at the uh sort of everything that's happened you know tackling the pandemics 53:34 really you know really thinking about that i think i'm motivated i am inspired again by young people 53:40 i think we are at sort of a point where the boldness and the i'm just inspired i 53:47 think it's again how do we bring it back to the center i think young people it shouldn't be on 53:52 the backs of young people that they have to fix all of our problems that we created over the years but definitely i 53:58 think we should step step back and let them lead uh and we should partner as adults in making sure that that happens because i think 54:04 the vision is there and and i think they they know where we need to go so we need to listen 54:14 and with that i will just quickly add to it's important that we show up for them 54:19 when they do lead and celebrate them and acknowledge them um and so would offer if anyone's interested 54:26 check out our website um hidden genius project we have an end-of-year celebration where we're celebrating the 54:31 past nine years of our geniuses building technology creation building websites learning front end and back in 54:37 development to then go out into the world and make change we're all doing that in different ways 54:42 and it's important to celebrate that work as well 54:51 i will have a couple other things that i've mentioned or that have been mentioned um that maybe for further learning um 54:57 check out uh roger hart's ladder of youth participation and there's a few adaptations to it as well um but that really helps as far as like 55:04 thinking about youth adult partnerships um use canva it's awesome uh 55:09 it helps with flyers i see a lot of flyers that are probably took people a ton of time and 55:14 aren't very good canva can like get that done quickly for you and um and they can be pretty high quality 55:20 um and yeah work with trust trust youth um to know 55:27 what they need and and what will help impact their lives positively um and get 55:33 police out of schools yeah and i'm i just wanna thank everyone 55:39 for being on this call on this program 55:44 um i see a lot of things just by listening to each of us 55:52 speak one thing i just have a thought is even those of us who are involved 55:58 so busy every day sometimes we feel isolated and we'd like to have colleagues to talk with 56:06 so i know how tired you are at the end of the day but this social this vehicle this zoom 56:13 vehicle has so much potential for building support 56:19 among not just young people but also adults and 56:26 i again i would just say thank you to all thank you to you you brian 56:33 crystal all the rest of you who've been part of it it's been a pleasure i hope we can do something like this again some 56:42 thanks so much again uh echo thank you thank you very thank you everyone i'm inspired you know what what samia 56:48 shared and so this is this is a great uh great panel you are wonderful people and i hope all you learners really uh 56:53 gotta benefit from this thank you thank you thanks