Young people in Memphis are educating themselves and organizing with their peers, while engaging adults in intergenerational conversations about issues facing their community.
The 901 Youth Action Network is a coalition of youth organizers from around the city who are focused on mobilizing and doing social justice work.
“There’s so many things happening,” Jasmine Bernard said. “Whether it’s the [Memphis Shelby County Schools] takeover, the National Guard still being here, or [Space]xAI down the street, young people are especially impacted by these issues.”
Bernard, a high school senior at University High School and founder of the group, said the group amplifies the work of other youth-centered movements in the city. 901 Youth Action Network also plans and organizes its own campaigns, including a recent one focused around redistricting, which was Zion Doran’s first movement.
For the Soulsville Charter School student, the legislature’s decision to redraw Tennessee’s congressional districts prompted her to contact Bernard, and they began to educate their peers on the implications of redistricting and what they could do, even though they couldn’t vote.
“You can do civic engagement and voter education,” Doran said. “Even though we can’t vote and participate in that part of the democratic process, they’re so many other things we can do.”
Bernard said they were able to mobilize through mass-calls to peers, and brought organizers such as Richard Massey and Darrah Hall to speak to what was going on. She credits these intergenerational conversations as pivotal to not only educating young people, but building the foundations of an effective movement.
“I think every movement is intergenerational if it’s actually successful,” Bernard said. “When we have those conversations, it does look like that sharing of knowledge [and] power back and forth, which I think is extremely important when you’re building community.”
These conversations aren’t only informative for Doran and Bernard’s peers, they said, adding that misinformation doesn’t have an age limit. Connecting with adults has also allowed for myths to be dispelled about young people.
“I’ve had an adult tell me young people are lazy and we don’t care about politics,” Doran said. “As someone who really loves politics, a lot of young people don’t know because nobody is telling them.”
She’s found that younger people are usually receptive to receiving information, especially when issues are directly affecting them. It’s proven to have been a helpful tool for working with her peers and adults.
In addition to regularly educating and mobilizing, the 901 Youth Action Network is working to create a “youth union.” The idea is to help young people strategize on local and regional issues, and ensure agency and credibility.
“[The union] would make it so much easier for young people’s voices to be heard, and so much harder for adults to deny us the right to make our future the future we want to see,” Bernard said.
