History
In the early 1990’s, popular media was awash with a narrative that the youth were a “lost generation.” It was as if the crack-cocaine crisis and rise in gang violence had caused adults to give up on young people. Community Coalition rejected this assessment, and instead believed that an investment of resources was needed to build the next generation of leaders.
Community Coalition also broke ground by involving their youth members in advocacy campaigns. The prevailing notion at the time was that high school students were too immature to be interested in social justice issues. CoCo disproved this pessimistic view, as the organization quickly saw dozens of leaders blossom before their eyes. Our young members became fierce activists, capable of speaking out about the conditions in their schools and neighborhoods.