Associate Publisher’s Statement
By Dr. Obari Cartman

My first instinct was to decline when Lawrence Hall called with the summer youth employment opportunity. They had money to pay the youth but not staff. I didn’t want to commit to supervising them. My second thought, however, was may-be I could pay kids to read? So that’s what we did. Some of the youth were more eager than others, but all of them did it anyway. When we offered them the entire August edition of the South Side Drive Magazine some didn’t feel qualified, but they did it anyway. And now, with the release of this publication we are all better for it.
It was important to give these youth the experience of being compensated for their ideas. We have such limited views of the value of our youth that often extends to their summer jobs. I remember sweeping hair in a barbershop for tips when I was teenager. I often reminded them they could be working at a fast food restaurant getting paid less to sell poison. In-stead our youth were learning, doing yoga, cultivating ideas, in Black owned space, with Black entrepreneurs, and serving the community at the same time. They also were able to cement the entire summer by documenting their experience in words and images through the South Side Drive.
All the adults I know are experiencing some form of in-creased anxiety, grief and anger from the overlapping tragedies of 2020. If we feeling that, then what must our youth be feeling? How are they processing all this? Instead of asking these questions into the wind we asked them directly, and paid them to write about. Any conversation about progress and a new vision for a better future must include their perspective. South Side Drive is honored to be an outlet for our youth’s authentic voice.

                                   —Dr. Obari Cartman