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Low-income urban communities can greatly benefit from youth’s contributions to community improvement, organizing, and political change efforts. Black youth in these communities may have unique inroads into civic engagement based on contemporary and historical oppression, family and cultural traditions, and personal experiences. Our qualitative study explores the factors that lead Black urban youth to become highly civically engaged.
Methods
This study takes an inductive qualitative approach, using 20 semi-structured interviews with a sample of youth identifying as Black, highly civically engaged, and between the ages of 14-18 (45% female) in Los Angeles, CA. Youth were recruited purposively through civically-focused community-based youth organizations that were located in low-income neighborhoods with high proportions of Black residents. Audio-taped, one-on-one interviews with Black interviewers explored structured opportunities, personal experiences, adult supports, events, and the role of Blackness and other identities in shaping civic engagement. Analyses began with line-by-line coding, followed by focused coding, memoing and team discussion to identify major themes.
Results
Youth were engaged in various civic activities including helping others, serving the community, mentoring, and organizing or advocating for social justice. Their reflections reveal various sources of civic engagement in the major domains of: family influences, personal challenges, and understandings of historical and contemporary racial injustices.
Parents, siblings, and extended family were sources of motivation for youth’s civic engagement. Some families participated together in civic actions or discussed political and social issues. One youth described how his father takes him to protests and volunteer activities and noted, “he’s where I get all my news from. So he explains what's going on in the world, why it’s significant.” For others, family responsibilities such as household chores or caring for relatives represented their first experience of feeling civically engaged.
Personal challenges motivated some youth to seek out civic opportunities to address these challenges on a larger scale. Examples included: becoming a peer health advisor based on personal mental health challenges, joining a protest a relative was killed by gun violence, and becoming active in women’s rights issues based on the experience of being “overly sexualized in different areas of life.”
Youth saw the historical oppression of Black communities as an important context for Black youth civic engagement, articulating understandings of slavery, institutional racism, and the legacy of Black civic activism. Some were inspired by notable Black civic actors, such as the youth who said this about Nipsey Hussle: “He's a real role model like, I like Nipsey, he from our neighborhood...liked to see him make it out the hood and to do all them big things, like that, and still come [back].” However, youth also noted that continued racial discrimination and injustices constrain civic opportunities in their neighborhoods.
Conclusions and Implications
Results highlight potentially unique sources of Black youth’s civic development, and additional analyses will explore intersections between themes. Insights from the study can inform urban community organizations, families, schools, and larger public knowledge about supports, opportunities, and experiences that may build civic capacity in urban Black communities.