CURRENT POSITION Teen Services Specialist, Prince George’s County Memorial Library System, MD DEGREE MSIS, University of Tennessee, 2014 FAST FACT West is “obsessed with all things skeleton, witchy, and spooky. I say this while wearing a skull argyle sweater vest and skull wedding band.” FOLLOW bit.ly/TeenIdeas-SocialJustice; bit.ly/TeensLearnAdvocacy; bit.ly/NBCSocialJusticeCamp Photo by Nestor Diaz

Activists, Activate!

Social justice has long come naturally to Isaiah West. That’s why, when Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (PGCMLS) was planning summer programming, he suggested teaching teenagers how to become activists.

The weeklong Social Justice Camp introduces teens to the history of social justice movements and the skills needed for successful activism. In 2022, 65 teens participated at five camps held at different libraries in the county, while 35 teens attended two camps in 2023. At camp’s end, they proposed their own projects, such as an advocacy campaign on Black reproductive health or a social media campaign on the problems with fast fashion and how to shop sustainably.

Participants have become social justice advocates at their schools, and included the camp in their college applications. “The biggest takeaway for me and my team is that these teens come into camp and choose topics important to them,” West says, “and when they pitch their project or solution at the end of the week, you can see their passion for creating a just society.”

He also led a staff collaboration in the May 2021 issue of Voices of Youth Advocates magazine. “We discussed being Black in libraries, confronting social inequity at its source, and provided multiple reading lists celebrating Black authors,” he says. “Even though I edited the issues, the entire PGCMLS staff contributed.” It received positive feedback from the library community, with many people promoting the articles and booklists.

West’s activist ideals were on display at an early age. In high school, he and some friends who helped out at the school library realized that a library assistant was “disappearing” books about Black, brown, and queer teens from the shelves. They stocked up on explicit Harlequin and Silhouette novels, and “we would replace any missing book that she had checked out with a romance novel,” baffling and scandalizing the assistant. While West acknowledges they should have let the librarian handle the censorship, he says, “Do I regret doing it? Not at all.”

West, who taught seventh-grade English before becoming a librarian, has a passion for working with young people. “Teens get a bad rap,” he says. “They can be moody, apathetic, chaotic, and more, but they are also authentic, inspiring, and funny.… They give me hope that society might have hope for a brighter and longer future.”