B L A C KY O U T H P O W E R R I S I N G

We are seen as a threat but I just see people wanting to live. Emily Norwood, 17 - Atlanta GA fellow with Project South's Septima Clark Community Power Institute & attended Movement for Black Lives Convening in July 2015

At the Movement For Black Lives convening in Cleveland there were all kinds of Black people. I don't know everyone's struggles and they don't know mine, and how will we ever know if we sit in silence or divided. The collective unity of people was the most amazing thing I saw in Cleveland. I hope to see more moving gestures like that in the future preferably with Project South. This year at Project South reinforced that one struggle is our struggle.

I am a second year fellow at Project South and Project South inspires me and reminds me to be aware of my surroundings and what happens in my community.

Ammaarah Hamidulla, 17

Project South co-sponsored and was part of the planning and program teams for the Movement for Black Lives Convening in Cleveland, OH July 26-28. Project South co-organized a charter bus with local partners and sent over 30 youth participants from the month-long Septima Clark Community Power Institute summer program. Ashe Helm-Hernandez led the delegation with Santrecheel Julian Graham, and Ash-Lee Henderson participated on the planning teams for the convening with other Southern partners.

Before my experience at the Movement for Black Lives convening, I had only read about things happening in the history books. To be able to partake in such a historical event is almost surreal. There were times where I had to remind myself that I was actually there, contributing to history. Not only that, but to see the liberation amongst people the same color as me, made my heart skip a thousand beats. It felt great to know that we were able to come together in a civilized manner to continue a fight that is bigger than ourselves.

I felt even more blessed to speak to elders from other organizations about our 10Mil4Real campaign at Project South.

I received advice on how to better organize within our community and project our voices so we can overcome the adultism we experience as youth. I also gained allies from other organizations and shared my knowledge with them. It was invigorating.

Nautica Jenkins, 18

In July 2015, over 30 young people from Project South traveled to Cleveland to participate in the Movement for Black Lives Convening.The first-hand experiences of the fellows and Action Team Leaders of the Septima Clark Community Power Institute are collected in this report.

Youth leadership development in the South has grown over the last 10 years, and their reflections tell the story of a new generation of movement organizers who know what is at stake and what to do about it.

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This was my weekend. This is our movement.Sydney Bradley, 17

The Movement for Black Lives convening was a sight to behold and a mind-blowing experience to be a part of. The M4BL convening was composed of thousands of black people/people of African descent who varied in identity, sexuality, and frontlines of struggle. The convening made me feel like I was at home and renewed my purpose around organizing and confronting systems of power that, every day, damage the lives of young people like myself and the youth that went with me from the Septima Clark Community Power Institute.

At first, I was unsure about what I personally wanted to bring to convening and what I wanted the youth to take away, however, I felt that after attending the convening and listening to the youth's reflections, the 'give and take' happened organically, which was the best experience of all. Our delegation realized their youth power and purpose for organizing while they were in the space. After attending the convening, I felt inspired to continue organizing, which was a huge deal. I had become hopeless and started to feel defeated with all the attacks on my life and my community. This convening re-ignited my desire to fight.

Being there made me feel that my life still has purpose. It meant that as long as I am alive and breathing, that I can still win. With all of the attacks on my body, mind, family and community and the messages that continually tell the story of 'defeated black people,' I still have a chance to change the narrative and even tell the correct narrative. Being at the convening gave me hope and made me feel proud to be a Black woman.

The youth were able to see their work around 10Mil4Real inside of a larger push to combat racism, sexism, and capitalism and to say that BLACK LIVES MATTER.

While doing so. I think that the youth were able to see that their local struggle around police in schools is not an isolated issue. It is an issue that is reinforced across the country by this notion that Black lives do not matter and that Black youth deserve to be policed and even killed because our lives are disposable.

Santrecheel Julian Graham, 23 Project South Community Organizer,Co-Director of Septima Clark Community Power Institute 2015, graduate of the New Schools at Carver High School (2009), andmother of two.

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It is more than a notion to be young and Black in the U.S. South right now. Watching as our communities experience over-policing, state-sanctioned violence against our people (usually with impunity), increasing criminalization, a failed economic system, the cradle-to-school-to-prison pipeline, increasing gentrification and displacement in our hollers and hoods, massive amounts of physical and economic violence on Black trans and queer folks, and more. Our people are the casualties of a white supremacist man-made crisis. If our people are to ever thrive in this country, it is up to us to make it so.

We take this responsibility seriously. We take to the streets. We learn from and develop loving relationships with the veterans of Black liberation struggles that came before us. We share stories about surviving broken levees, hurricanes, and non-indictments of cops, vigilantes, and security guards who have slaughtered our people. We live in poverty and go to underfunded and over-policed schools. We commit ourselves to living lives in service to the liberation and unapologetic love of our people, tearing down, dismantling, and uprooting what oppresses, and building a new South, together. We remind ourselves that as goes the South, so goes the nation, and ain't no Southern Freedom Movement without young people.

It was with this knowledge and these lived experiences that a small number of relatively young people, including myself, came together in face-to-face meetings, emails, and more conference calls than I can count, to build a space where we as Black people could come dream and imagine together, to heal and love on each other, to learn and share best practices, to reflect and create, to acknowledge and uplift a fundamental principle of our movement - ALL Black Lives Matter.

Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide family made a commitment to support the planning and hosting of the inaugural Movement for Black Lives National Convening in Cleveland, Ohio, and to send a delegation of 30 young people to participate. From July 26th-28th, our youth and delegations from participating and anchor organizations with the Southern Movement Assembly built with other Southern freedom fighters and over 2,000 Black people from across the United States and abroad. The delegation also participated in the 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free' Black Peoples Movement Assembly co-facilitated by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and myself.

For many of us on the Movement for Black Lives organizing team, the reflections of the participants is how we experience the convening, how we continue to synthesize and assess what went well and what we could've done better. It helps us understand if we correctly identified what our people needed in a particular political moment in the longer-term struggle for Black liberation.

The reflections in Black Youth Power Rising reconfirm that all the sacrifices we made to make the M4BL National Convening a reality were absolutely worth it. The convening was much more than a conference or an event. My hope is that these reflections will give you a glimpse into the experiences of some of the most brilliant youth I know, and encourage you to commit to building the local, statewide, regional, national, and global people's power that it will take for us all to see liberation in our lifetimes. Let's get free y'all.

Joe Tolbert from Knoxville TN, Mya Hunter from Durham NC, & Ash-Lee Henderson from Chattanooga TN

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, 30 Project South Regional Organizer

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I was proudly a part of the Movement for Black Lives convening that took place in Cleveland, Ohio. This conference was held on the campus of Cleveland State University (CSU). Given that I've never been on a college campus, it was a fun experience.

In the CSU Student Center where registration was taking place, love filled the room as I walked in seeing hundreds of Black people happily standing and conversing with one another, it was completely captivat-ing. Where do you go and see a bunch of Black people being nice to each other and sharing experiences with one another besides in front of the corner store? Being able to walk in this area and feel all the love was just eye opening, and in a way, it was thoroughly refreshing.

The opening ceremony began with a transgender woman, Elle Hearns. She came onto the stage and began to thank people for coming out to the event. I volunteered to be a part of the choir. I had to go onto the stage in the auditorium, the place in which hundreds of people would gather! This part of the conference was when families of Black people who were killed gathered and spoke. Each member gave a little bio about the person who was killed and following that they gave a reason as to why they fight for that person. While this was taking place, I was on stage with the choir.

We were singing while each family was speaking. Having to watch each of these people speak about a person who has passed and seeing them speak without crying was heartbreaking, if I was to lose someone and have to talk about them, I would break down and forget how to speak. It was hard to sing. I looked into the audience and saw people who had never met the families, yet they were crying as if it was someone they knew personally. That's how much love was in this room. You would see one person being strong for someone they had never met, but they wouldn't care because to them, we are all one family.

This entire trip was beyond amazing, yet at the same time, it was very tiring. When you walked into any of these spaces, you felt love, but along with the love, you felt pain. So many different forms of pain. People who got hurt trying to help others, people who lost others, and people who just feel bad in general.

Every day you walk in the world, you are oblivious to things that happen whether you believe it or not. Everyone is born and trained to be naive about anything that happens and that's just how life is. Yet when you train yourself to not be naïve, and you begin to see things that are actually going on, you're like: 'What have I been doing, to not see that this has been going on so close to me?' And, then it hits you, that you've been right there, you just have refused to believe that it was all real.

You slowly begin to open up and realize that these things are happening.

People are seriously being killed. People are seriously being taken advantage of. People are seriously being wrongly accused. People are seriously trying to save themselves from being removed off of the face of this earth.

That's how much love was in this room. You would see one person being strong for someone they had never met, but they wouldn't care because

we are all one family.

Gabriella Naeem, 16 Action Team Leader with the Septima Clark Community Power Institute

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I'm fighting for those who can't fight

because of personal issues.

I'm fighting for my kids that I will have in the future. I'm fighting for their kids.

I'm fighting for my children's children's

children!

I want this planet to nourish in happiness, not hate.

I want people to love and cherish one another.

I want people to fight for each other.

I want people to realize that we are all

people and that we are all humans no

matter what we look like.

That's why I fight! ~ Gabriella Neem

The $10Mil4Real Campaign was launched in late 2014 by the Youth Leadership Team at Project South. A South Atlanta Youth Movement Assembly determined the direction and goals of the youth-led campaign, and it represents a local effort to advance the National Student Bill of Rights. $10Mil4Real challenges the disproportionate resources that fund police in Atlanta schools and offers a vision of re-investing in student needs: including job training, childcare, and transportation. The $10Mil4Real Campaign organizes at the intersections of police misconduct, education justice, economic justice, reproductive justice, and racial justice. Find out more at www.projectsouth.org

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Seeing and listening to why they fight made me appreciate my people more. The media never highlights the good our people are doing, the change they are creating. If it isn't negative it isn't aired.

James Oliver, 18: Attending the Movement for Black Lives convening was very educational and fun. We learned about different people's problems and their solutions. In the workshop about abuse effecting Black women, we talked about how a Black woman was raped by a policeman. The policeman denied her accusation, and she almost got arrested. We then went on and talked about how violence affects Black women everywhere. Like in the schools and on the streets. It gave me a new outlook on police brutality. Overall the trip was amazing.

Chandrema Harper, 18: Being in Cleveland for the Black lives matter movement was life changing. There were so many people fighting, fighting for what they believed in, fighting for acceptance, fighting for justice. So many Black organizations came out. Seeing and listening to why they fight made me appreciate my people more. The media never highlights the good

our people are doing, the change they are creating. If it isn't negative it isn't aired. While being in Ohio I attended a few workshops related to different problems Black people are living with. I learned the most about Queer folks. They talked about how Black queer people and transgender people really feel and what they go through from day to day. The only difference they have from other Black people is their sexuality. They lose loved ones to police brutality just like us, they share the same skin tone as us, so why can't we accept them.

Malika Benoit, 17: My experience attending the Movement for Black Lives was nothing short of amazing! The numerous amounts of Black people in one place as a united front was historical, breathtaking, and a once in a lifetime experience. Also, the fact that the Black Lives Matter convening had strict orders on how no allies were allowed was something that had never been done before. So all in all the Movement for Black Lives convening made a huge impact on my life.

Shekinah King, 18: My experience attending M4BL in Cleveland was awesome. The environment and the atmosphere was very clean and fresh. The citizens of Ohio were very welcoming and inspiring. It lifted my spirit to see people of all ages come together for the rights of all individuals. The energy was great!

Jordan White, 18: The M4BL convening in Cleveland was a very enlightening experience for me. I learned a lot about a culture I knew nothing about - from what cisgender is, to the struggles that transgender people go thru. One moment that really had an effect on me was when a teen was getting arrested after the convening. I got emotional even, because it hit so close to home, and I actually felt a part of the cause. Being there and talking to folks was one thing but actually being a part of the action really opened my eyes and made me want to do more than what I was already doing.

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Keshaiaa Jones, 15: The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) convening in Cleveland was amazing! This was the first time I went to an event with so many empowering Black people from different backgrounds. It was very heartwarming to see so many families that had lost a loved one due to police violence and brutality talk about their ongoing fight for justice. We must come together as a whole community and fight the oppression of African Americans! We definitely brought the positivity! We have power in numbers!

Kaetlyn Baxter, 19: The Movement for Black Lives convening workshops I went to were awesome! There was one workshop with folks talking about Black people in pop culture. That one Black guy in every tv show, who happens to be either extremely southern or extremely 'ghetto.' We also talked about Rachel Dolezal, and how she pretended that she had lived life as a black woman when she had no experience. That workshop kinda taught me to never simply accept the things presented to me.

Lamya Anderson, 16: I got the chance to hear other people from different states talk about their experience with the police and other problems they face. The best part was when all of us came together to hold an assembly with different chants, dancing, and saying Black Lives Matter! Everyone was having a good time, even the little kids, Just seeing them come up with a dance and singing routine about Black lives matter made me proud.

Shay Hodges, 16: The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) convening was not only fun, it was a great learning experience! I was on an emotional rollercoaster with the energy in the opening space. It was very "Turnt" and then quickly switched from tears of sadness to tears of joy, and ended with loud laughs and claps. This experience taught me what it truly looks like when Black people stick together and have each other's backs.

In a workshop I attended at the M4BL convening, I gathered that genocide is absolutely real. I learned that we as a people need to start building self-awareness. A quote that stood out to me during the workshop - Watch my back, watch my back, we're under attack, I'll watch your back! To me the quote meant, that we need to have each other's back at all times no matter the circumstances. Also, this quote reminded me of the self-defense tactics the workshop focused on and the idea that we should not only be talking about things but actually be about things.

Within our community we should be building self-defense networks and classes. I also witnessed a lot of people determined to get their needs and wants met for accessibility. For example, I saw transgender folks determined to get their 'gender neutral' restrooms, and that's exactly what they did. I was very proud to see that happen so quickly.

Lalicia Anderson, 18: Just being a part of the organizing prior to going to the convening was different from anything I've done at Septima Clark Community Power Institute (SCCPI), and our work helped the organization grow. The convening was needed for the Black community because of the violence we've faced as a population.

When we were all gathered in one room, it seemed to be the best moments of the movement. I heard remarkable stories from families representing their loved ones. It is true that an injustice to one is an injustice to all.

My personal reflection on Black Lives Matter is that there is more to do, more issues to organize around, and more organizations to reach out to. They may be open to join forces with us on the National Student Bill of Rights (NSBR) or the 10Mil4Real campaign.

As a youth organizer, I gained a great experience that'll be a part of our collective history in establishing new policies in the court system and making a difference in our community. I'm grateful to have had that opportunity. As an Action Site Leader with Project South, outside of the convening I called a Sister Circle to handle the issues that our group was facing. I felt like it was my responsibility as a leader to bring things back together and build a circle of understanding for one another. That was one of my proudest moments being a part of the Septima Clark Community Power Institute this summer.

I enjoyed this position and will be taking the many things I learned with me into the Real World!

I called a Sister Circle to handle the issues that our group was facing. I felt like it was my responsibility as a leader to bring things back

together and build a circle of understanding for one another. That was one of my proudest

moments being a part of the Septima Clark Community Power Institute this summer.

Project South Youth leaders at 2015 MLK Day March, Speaking Truth at their bimonthly Radio program, and on Atlanta's People TV. (photos top to bottom)

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Jaequan Allison, 18: The Movement for Black Lives convening in Cleveland was a very inspiring event and it helped me get a better understanding of others' points of view.

For example, when I witnessed the meeting with the LGBTQ community, I felt their pain and frustrations of always being ridiculed and always being judged because of who they are.

As Black man I have been racially profiled. They have been profiled for how they look too and we are in agreement that this is an injustice.

Now the LGBTQ community in the African American community is working on ways to change the system so we don't feel like we're less than human.

No form of oppression should be tolerated, and we should do something about it. Just as African Americans want their natural right to be equal citizens and not be harassed by officers who are supposed to serve and protect but instead abuse their power.

In a workshop about women's rights, speakers talked about the difficulties of being Black

women in this society. They expressed their feelings about rape, oppression, and many other issues they face. Hearing their stories opened my eyes and gave me a wake up call. This experience was enlightening. Steven Garlington, 17

We talked about everything that pertains to Black lives matter: AIDS, ACT-UP, access to childcare, Emmett Till, being queer, and Freedom Rides. NicoleEnos, 20

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Youth leaders invite participants to the Youth Movement Assembly at the fifth Southern Movement Assembly in New Orleans August 27-29, 2015.

We have to work as a whole and remember the needs of others because we are a family and in the end we all have the same goals. Savon Jenkins, 17

In the summer of 2015, Project South made a commitment to support the planning and hosting of the inaugural Movement for Black Lives National Convening in Cleveland, Ohio, and to send a delegation of 30 young people to participate. From July 26th-28th, our youth and delegations from participating and anchor organizations with the Southern Movement Assembly built with other Southern freedom fighters and over 2,000 Black people from across the United States and abroad.

This report represents reflections from Project South youth leaders in this historic political moment. Reflections were compiled and edited by Ashe Helm-Hernandez, Local Program Coordinator. Layout and design by Stephanie Guilloud, Co-Director.

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