Photograph by Hector Amador
This essay is part of a series—we asked 17 Atlantans to tell us how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has impacted their lives in honor of its 60th anniversary. Read all of the essays here.
I grew up steeped in Atlanta’s civil rights movement. I remember singing “We Shall Overcome” at the King Center before I could fully speak English. The activism Atlanta instilled in me since childhood sparked a blaze when I began transitioning into adulthood, and the system began transitioning me into a state of “illegality.”
Growing up undocumented in Atlanta linked my politicized experience to the struggle of civil rights activists. I was 16 when I was denied the prize for an art contest because I didn’t have a Social Security number. I could not drive or work legally. The same higher-education institutions that banned Black students then are the same institutions that ban undocumented students now. Our struggles are inextricable.
As a student at Agnes Scott College pre-DACA, I began using art to process my undocumentedness. I also dedicated much of my studies to unearthing the truths of the civil rights movement and U.S. history. Reading Marilyn Frye’s essay “Oppression” forever imprinted on me the metaphor of the birdcage as oppression; I learned I could not achieve my liberation by reforming one wire of the cage. We have to collectively dismantle the cage in its entirety. The legacy of the civil rights movement lives on through the righteous fight of those disrupting business as usual. I would be remiss not to express my admiration for those mobilizing to stop Cop City and for a free Palestine, among many other struggles.
From Chicago, I keep my heart oriented toward Atlanta’s resistance. I am in awe of the steadfastness of those resisting Cop City in Atlanta—from Tortuguita protecting the Weelaunee, to the 20 Black women and femmes protesting in song outside Mayor Dickens’s home, to the two trans women who scaled a 250-foot crane at a construction site. I carry their rally cries with me.
As I pursue my MFA, I sharpen my tools so that I may return to Atlanta equipped to make my work useful to activists on the ground. Those of us who call this city home have a responsibility to live up to the vision of the civil rights movement. My role as an artist is to help us imagine a world where that vision is possible.
Yehimi Cambrón Álvarez is an artist and activist born in Michoacán, Mexico, and raised in Atlanta. She is pursuing an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This article appears in our June 2024 issue.
