Contribution: Revolution Looks Like This

Originally written April 4, 2014 by Michelle Janaye

By Michelle Janaye (Co-Founder, H.O.P.E. Scholarship)

If the idea of being “revolutionary” looked more liked Steve Urkel than Angela Davis, I would definitely fit the description. Skinny jeans.

Glasses. Suspenders. (Well, no suspenders, but only because I can’t find a fresh pair to rock to my book club meetings). But I digress …

There was once a time when the more progressive minded among us wore afros and leather. They were boundary pushing, free food distributing, fist pumping, power-to-the-people yelling pioneers who forced everyone around them to pay attention. They made demands instead of excuses. When they saw people who were sick or hungry in their communities, they engineered solutions in the form of low cost medical care and free breakfast programs.

They were REVOLUTIONARIES — ambassadors of a driven generation who used the resources they had, where they were, to make positive social change. They were by no means perfect, but they were brave and for that I admire them.

And while MY uniform — and that of everyone I know, who is working hard to make the world a better place — might look different from our rebel-rousing predecessors, I consider our efforts no less revolutionary. In my mind, revolution looks like service and revolutionaries look like us:

Consider Jason Wallace. Jason is the lead servant at Community One LLC, a non-profit organization that exposes at-risk children to working professionals working in interesting career fields. When I see Jason, he’s usually sporting a full suit and tie, but what could be more revolutionary than exposing a classroom full of inner-city fifth graders to a career in international law?

The gentlemen at Young Doctors DC, an education and health careers​ pipeline program for high school boys, are doing a tremendous job, training young men on the fundamentals of medicine. Under their mentorship, students are equipped with the skills to facilitate mobile health clinics at local parks, neighborhood recreation centers, and churches. If empowering young men from inner-city neighborhoods to be ambassadors for healthy eating and healthy living isn’t revolutionary, then nothing else is.

As co-founder of The H.O.P.E. Scholarship Initiative, I dare to believe that an undertaking so minimal as donating a few hours of my time to raise money for a scholarship, that could change the trajectory of a student’s entire life, is an act of revolution. As chair of the I Love Howard Campaign, I also believe that a small yet innovative grassroots fundraising campaign will inspire a legion of young HBCU graduates across the country to change the tide of anemic alumni giving at their alma maters.

What are you doing to push the boundaries of the status quo in the name of progress? Show me what your “revolution” looks like?