Today we’d like to introduce you to Kesi Felton.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Kesi. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have always been a writer and storyteller. When I was in elementary school, I made a magazine and interviewed my classmates, had advertisements and everything. So I’d known for a long time that I was going to study journalism in college and I eventually chose to do so at Howard University. My senior year in high school was when I began to explore the idea of social justice and community engagement, which pretty much took off when I got to DC.
Before starting Better to Speak, I had a blog where I wrote about different things relating to Black womanhood and self-actualization. I started an interview series called “What’s Your Story?” where I interviewed my peers about their creative and entrepreneurial journeys. On campus, I was involved in the student newspaper The Hilltop, Her Campus Howard which is an online magazine for college women, I was a founding member of a sexual assault awareness organization, and then my path veered off into student government where I found my passion for political and advocacy communications; and in general, the overall idea that storytelling can be a powerful tool for social change.
Has it been a smooth road?
The summer before my junior year, there came a possibility that I wouldn’t be able to return to Howard. I was luckily able to get an emergency loan for the fall, but I wound up in the same predicament before spring semester and had to take time off. Luckily, I had a fellowship at a marketing agency, which allowed me to stay in DC and work full time but remain connected to campus. I had to leave in the middle of a lot of great work I was doing with campus organizations, but I will say not being in school freed up a lot of the demands on my time and energy, which gave me the space to explore what I wanted to do professionally and creatively in a different way.
I took full advantage of that — I had a podcast on a campus radio station which my co-host Isabella and I started working on the previous semester, partnered with campus organizations for events with Better to Speak, and took a couple of short certification classes in Digital Production at a local DC public broadcasting station.
After my fellowship and apartment lease ended, I wanted to come back home to learn more about Atlanta’s entrepreneurial and political scenes, which is where I’m at now. So I say all that to say while leaving Howard disrupted my path and the sure-set plan I had for myself, I realized that my only perception of success and opportunity was centered on and limited by a four-year degree program, instead of the opportunities and genuine relationships I choose to build through it. This part of my journey has allowed me to tap into a much bigger dream for myself. I no longer see college as a mandate to realize success, but rather a tool to take what I believe I would have created regardless to another level with much more institutional access.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Better to Speak – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
Better to Speak — inspired by Audre Lorde’s 1978 poem “A Litany for Survival” — is a community advocacy organization whose mission is to embolden people of African descent to share their story through content and community engagement initiatives. We’ve also working on small communications and marketing projects for social impact clients.
During my freshman year, I had the opportunity to go to St. Louis, MO through Howard’s Alternative Spring Break program, where I got to volunteer at the high school Mike Brown attended. On our very first day there, we met their librarian who was telling us about how during her time there, she hadn’t seen a lot of books by or about Black people beyond Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., or professional athletes, which surprised her since the school was predominantly Black located in a predominantly Black neighborhood. What surprised me was that this was a white woman who was concerned about this. So I had the idea then to organize a book drive on behalf of my volunteer group or Howard where we collected books by, for and about the Black community.
Later on, I realized that students in DC could benefit from those books as well, so I partnered with Reading Partners DC to launch Better to Speak’s flagship initiative, Better to Speak: The Book Drive. From there, we’ve done a panel on Black women’s political power which also served as a voter registration opportunity ahead of GA’s deadline for the 2018 midterms; a roundtable discussion on masculinity and mental health in the Black community, and most recently a menstrual product drive in partnership with Happy Period ATL which was my first project here in Atlanta.
My goal through each initiative is not just to collect a bunch of stuff to say we did it, but to give time to the community we’re serving. As a journalism student, it’s also important to me to ensure there’s an educational piece to everything we do so that people can have the context for each project and have resources to continue to advocate for those issues even after our events or donation drives are over. That’s been important to me since day one — to really be with people, build community, and create space for honest conversations about our selves and our community.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Even though Atlanta has such a rich culture and history that speaks for the city’s impact in and of itself, it is really leading the way in the innovation of so many industries. Although I was raised in the Metro- Atlanta area, it’s exciting to get more involved in the city as an adult through my work and learn more about how people are working to improve the city from state and local politics, entrepreneurship, to creating spaces for community building.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bettertospeak.org
- Email: bettertospeak@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/bettertospeak_
- Facebook: facebook.com/bettertospeak
- Twitter: twitter.com/bettertospeak_
- Other: www.kesifelton.com
Image Credit:
David Robinson
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