This chapter introduces young Black changemaking. Black youth face racism at interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels. Young Black changemakers take civic actions to resist racism. Our work brings a fresh, contemporary look at young Black changemaking that is drawn from youth’s own voices and relevant to the current times. The research study is set in Los Angeles, a city with a long history of anti-Black racism and resistance, and coincided with summer 2020, a time of racialized police violence and uprising. Sociopolitical development theory is an important foundation for understanding young Black changemaking. We end the chapter with the 10 main ideas found in the book.

In this chapter, young Black changemakers offer words of hope and calls to action for researchers, educators, organizers, and the public. Black youth envision a world without racism, and it is imperative to follow Black youth’s leads to eliminate racism. To help Black youth sustain their changemaking, it is valuable to invest in Black youth, including youth-led initiatives and Black-centered spaces. As a call to action, it is urgent to root out anti-Blackness in schools, on social media, and in broader public narratives. Each author reflects on major lessons learned from the study. We underscore how Black youth bring society hope for the future and point the way forward on the road to racial justice.

For young Black changemakers, families are a keystone of their civic engagement. Mothers, fathers, and extended family members connect youth to opportunities for changemaking and engage with them, which provides foundational launching points for youth’s deeper journeys into changemaking. Through conversations, families discuss the value of changemaking and also make space for supporting youth’s own chosen changemaking paths. These conversations help youth sustain their civic action and support youth’s attempts to create change in the world around them. Yet, families’ influences on Black youth are not only adult-driven. Young Black changemakers demonstrate agency in pursuing civic actions that center their families. For some Black youth who are engaged in helping their family members, civic engagement quite literally begins at home. Young Black changemakers are also driven to challenge racism in part to protect their own families, and they work to honor their families’ legacy by working to make the world better for them and other Black people.

Young Black changemakers take pride in their connection to Black communities of past and present. This strong and positive Black identity motivates their changemaking. Black identity intertwines with other identities – such as gender and social class positions – to inform experiences of oppression and changemaking in response. Commitment to and love for Black communities empowers young Black people to cope with and resist racism in ways that protect their personal identities from threat and draw on the strengths of their personal narratives. Young Black changemakers find civic purpose and power in the legacy of Black social justice leaders and lean into that history to honor their place in Black communities. The relationship between identity and changemaking is reciprocal. For these young people, pride and connection to being Black fed their desire to eradicate racism through changemaking. Engaging in changemaking for a better world for Black people also deepened their connections to Black people and Black communities.