I Want to Change the World by Fighting for Racial Justice

This is an excerpt from an interview by the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

"Sarah Gettel’s interest in community organizing began in her hometown of Grafton, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee. 'I grew up with little awareness of what it means to be white in America,' she says. 'While I saw racial segregation in my own community and as a volunteer in Milwaukee schools, it wasn’t until college that I recognized my white privilege and how racism operates today.'

"After graduating from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, Sarah worked in Washington, DC for Polaris, an anti-trafficking organization. In Baltimore in 2015, police arrested a 25-year-old African American man for possessing an illegal knife; he was injured in custody and died. The Black Lives Matter movement, two years old at the time, gained even greater urgency, and greater still as the 2016 election inflamed racial hostilities across the country. Now working for another anti-trafficking organization, Free the Slaves, Sarah found her focus turning toward racial justice."

Read the full interview at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.