The Light of the West End is in the Bayview

Traveling 3,000 miles away from home, Ashton Green ’26 , has been able to find his home away from home. Through the McCarthy Center’s Equity Intern program, he feels a close relationship between his hometown Atlanta, Georgia, and educating the youth of our future.

Slowly intertwining within the Bayview community through this opportunity made me see how many similarities there are in one of the communities I grew up in back home in Atlanta, Georgia. I moved around quite a bit within the city and metropolitan of Atlanta but one of the most prominent communities that still stays with me is the West End. The West End is very similar to Bayview in the ways that are common in the social light that is always talked about. Both have the light of low-income, heavily black-populated, and highly policed areas. This social light being shined on both communities does so much harm to the areas because certain individuals and resources choose to avoid these communities as if it’s a plague. However, what these individuals and resources fail to realize is how strong the inner works and relationships are within these communities.

Growing up in the West End, I’ve had people that I didn’t know particularly well, raise me in the neighborhood that I lived in — close people who would watch me as a kid while my parents went to work, “cousins” who I would run with until the street lights came on, and having meals at the church that was only three blocks away every Sunday night. It is a special community because this neighborhood was extended family to me including all the kids who were there too. That’s the light that people who don’t live in these communities/neighborhoods are not able to see.

When it comes to Bayview, I can see the same light within the short weeks that I’ve been a part of this program. Being able to see the educators interact with all the families in a multitude of ways, interacting with leaders who are making progress to change the community progressively, and just being easily welcomed by everyone reminds me of what I had growing up back at home. That’s why the neighborhood that’s 3,000 miles away and the neighborhood that’s on the edge of the city will have a special place in my head and heart.

Learn more about the Equity Interns here.