6 - Families and Young Black Changemaking

Summary

For young Black changemakers, families are a keystone of their civic engagement. Mothers, fathers, and extended family members connect youth to opportunities for changemaking and engage with them, which provides foundational launching points for youth’s deeper journeys into changemaking. Through conversations, families discuss the value of changemaking and also make space for supporting youth’s own chosen changemaking paths. These conversations help youth sustain their civic action and support youth’s attempts to create change in the world around them. Yet, families’ influences on Black youth are not only adult-driven. Young Black changemakers demonstrate agency in pursuing civic actions that center their families. For some Black youth who are engaged in helping their family members, civic engagement quite literally begins at home. Young Black changemakers are also driven to challenge racism in part to protect their own families, and they work to honor their families’ legacy by working to make the world better for them and other Black people.