Organizing for a More Equitable Future for Youth of Color

We must love each other and support each other.

Over the past decade, the words of Black Liberation activist Assata Shakur have echoed across California, as a chant by many grassroots youth organizing groups. It inspired them as they marched and protested as part of the Black Lives Matter movement; it inspired them as they engaged in nonpartisan campaigns to change state and local policies; and it inspired them as they worked to get out the vote. And in California, youth organizing has sparked some of the boldest systemic reforms seen in decades, including a campaign to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline (which reduced expulsion and suspension rates in high schools statewide) and massive voter registration and education campaigns that contributed to a near tripling of youth voter turnout between 2014 and the 2018 midterm elections.

Building youth power and the infrastructure that supports it is an investment in a more equitable and just future. Drawing from both research and lived experience, we discuss what makes youth organizing groups successful in building the power to influence policy making and brighten the futures of young people of color.

Over the 2010s, the number of youth-organizing groups in California grew from 10-15 in 2010 to 171 by 2019. Primed by the undocumented youth movement at the beginning of the decade, and drawing energy from the allied Movement for Black Lives in the latter half, these groups engaged growing numbers of adolescents in addressing local, regional, and even statewide issues. Critical to this effort was support from The California Endowment (TCE) and other philanthropic organizations: their investment in these groups, and in intermediary organizations that support them, was crucial for expanding young people’s engagement in grassroots organizing and in the success of civic efforts that led to more than 100 policy wins and contributed to significant increases in turnout among young voters.