Attention Student Activists: Here’s How To Avoid Being A Gentrifier

5. Reach out to elders/locals in the neighborhood.

The goal of building strategically is for folks on the ground to learn and develop a strategy from folks who have been here long before us. Yet, despite the fact that so many Civil Rights leaders live in Atlanta, there always seems to be a huge generational divide.

Organizers on both sides have been dismissive, leading to varied strategies on how to help the West End of Atlanta that were not actually effective.

“I believe it’s vital that we work to build with elders in order to grow the work we do,” said Da’Shaun Harrison, a student activist at Morehouse College. “Being able to work with Civil Rights leaders [can] catalyze our efforts so that we engage with every demographic in the West End.”

— Da'Shaun Harrison

Growing up, I used to hate listening to my mother go on about our family tree. But, through organizing, I have found a renewed love for history, especially the ways we can plug into the elders in our communities to find ways to build more strategic paths to liberation.

Elders and those who have firm roots in the community can help us understand how to help uplift their stories and will make the work we do to get Community Benefits Agreements no longer demands but solid legislation.

Interview with: Clarissa Brooks | for: Everyday Feminism

To read more of this interview, click here.

Da'Shaun Harrison

Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black trans theorist, storyteller, and community organizer in Atlanta, GA. Harrison has risen to national acclaim with the release of their debut title, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness—published in August 2021. Belly of the Beast won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, and since then, Harrison has been the recipient of ProjectHEAL’s “Inspire Award” along with several other media and literary honors. Harrison lectures on Blackness, fatness, gender, and their intersections. Harrison currently serves as Editor-at-Large at Scalawag Magazine and is the co-host of the podcast “Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back.” Between the years 2019 and 2021, Harrison served as Associate Editor — and later as Managing Editor — of Wear Your Voice Magazine.

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