Power in Community, Power to Community

Olivia Brown ’25, a Critical Diversity Studies and Public Relations student, has also been an Engage Literacy Tutor for three years. She works with today’s youth in our city’s Booker T. Washington Youth Community Service Center and has built strong relationships over time. Read  how her experience has helped the next generation embrace who they are and who they want to become. 

Before coming to USF, I had no understanding of community. I understood what community consisted of and how people came together, especially in times of need, but I failed to see what makes community—as well as building, sustaining, and partnering with the community—so critically important.

Through my coursework as a Critical Diversity Studies major, I learned the importance of community work and how to engage with communities to uplift historically marginalized groups and make tangible change. Yet, my work with Engage Literary San Francisco has really been the pinnacle of education surrounding community work and laid the foundation for my knowledge of The Fillmore. Through my work as a literacy tutor, I learned how to support my site, Booker T Washington Community Service Center, in their efforts toward educational equity and equality.

The Engage San Francisco program is grounded in cultural humility and understanding the systemic inequalities that the youth communities in The Fillmore face. Al Williams and Carl Williams of the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society added to that understanding of the Fillmore during our talk at the Reimagining Justice series conversation regarding the African American Historical Context Statement (AAHCS). The AAHCS is a living document that serves to preserve and archive The Fillmore and Bayview/Hunters Point, prominent African American communities in San Francisco, recording phenomena like migration, businesses and schools, churches, and more.

During our conversation, I was fascinated with the knowledge that Al and Carl hold about African American history and communities here in San Francisco. They spoke thoughtfully and critically about how San Francisco African American communities have changed gentrification and urban renewal that have fragmented and further disenfranchised the African American community. Yet documents like that AAHCS sustain that community by including the many voices of the individuals from The Fillmore and Bayview/Hunters Point communities.

One of the highlights from the conversation was when Al expressed the African proverb, “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter”. Speaking to a room of young students striving to work within community engagement and advocacy work, this proverb spoke to how documents like the AAHCS aim to make tangible change and preserve the decades of history within San Francisco. With work like the AAHCS and taking the words of this proverb to heart, I have been inspired to continue my work with youth at the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center through Engage SF and advocate for the educational rights of underrepresented youth.

Engage San Francisco – and many other McCarthy Center events like the Reimagining Justice series with Al Williams and Carl Williams – has changed the way I approach advocacy work for the better. This program has taught me how to advocate for communities by uplifting their voices and needs; not overstepping but stepping behind in support. I am eternally grateful to the staff, resources, and programming that the McCarthy Center has offered me these last four years. With programs like these, we can make meaningful changes, transform, and create new futures for us all!

Literacy can help all communities grow! To learn more about all of the center’s programs,  visit the Leo T. McCarthy Center today!