Young activists face unique challenges, including balancing demanding schedules and economic insecurity, which can hinder their participation in social justice movements. To foster engagement, organizers stress the importance of creating welcoming environments where young people feel their voices are heard in decision-making processes.
"We're dealing with a lot at the same time," said Li, 25, who founded a youth organizing fellowship in 2022 as part of a community justice coalition in Collierville, Tennessee. "We're balancing jobs, we're balancing care-giving, demanding school schedules, and then we're more economically-insecure compared to other generations."
Another critical factor for involving more young people is ensuring that advocacy opportunities are funded and paid. Taylor, 50, founder of Chicago-based social justice organization Organic Oneness, stated that investing in young collaborators is essential. "If you're an artist, youth, whoever you are, if we are working together, I will do what needs to be done for the budget to make sure that we are compensated fairly," Taylor said.
Brown, 24, a Marshall-Motley Scholar at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, highlighted that meeting young people where they are and leading with kindness is equally crucial. "Kindness is at the center of all the work that we do. People are only receptive to who they feel heard by," Brown explained. "If you're not kind to people, [if you’re] not listening to the people that you're serving, you're not doing it correctly. If you're not kind to people, then you're not doing the work."
These discussions took place at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago during the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s inaugural Every Child Thrives Festival, where activists convened to discuss intergenerational advocacy.