Last summer, youth activists organized Black Lives Matter protests, marched in the streets, and called for change in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

A year later, those youths are graduating, starting jobs and moving to new states. And they plan to advocate for equality and representation in careers from business to law.

They said they were proud to have helped make changes in their communities but said it's important to keep fighting for justice.

Nanayaa Asantewa Ali

Last year, Nanayaa Asantewa Ali, of Groton, began texting her friends to say she wanted to organize a Black Lives Matter protest in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Ali, whose 18th birthday was the day after his murder, said she was hit hard by his death and wanted to protest police brutality. 

The friends reached out to people from New London to Norwich, ultimately leading to a nearly 1000 person protest in Groton, organized by the new group, the Groton Youth Collective. The group, which spanned ages 10 to 20s, continued to build momentum after the protest and started smaller protests, signing petitions and in April protesting for both Asian Lives and Black Lives. Ali also did an internship at the Groton Town Police department.

Ali, now 19 and a recent graduate of Robert E. Fitch High School, commencement speaker and the winner of a CABE student leadership award, said it feels good to know that she helped out. But she's quick to give credit to the people who stood behind her, pushed her and made her believe in herself: her fellow GYC leaders, community, parents — her father is an activist — and her ancestors.

She will major in psychology at Bethune-Cookman University, a Historically Black College and University, in Daytona, Fla. and go to law school school to become a human rights lawyer or criminal justice lawyer. 

She hopes to start a Black-owned law firm to help Black communities and others in dire need and help people who can’t afford a lawyer fight for justice. 

“I want to be able to fight for people,” she said. “I want to be able to help them and defend them when they can’t defend themselves.”

Looking back on the past year, she said her group brought voice to the situation and helped change minds. But she said it’s important to keep pushing for defunding and rebuilding the police system and fighting against police brutality.

“Police brutality needs to come to an end,” she said. “If it doesn’t end now, a lot of more lives will be lost.”

She said she wants people to know that the Black Lives Matters movement is never over.

“It will never be over until we as a people are not being killed because of our skin color,” she said. “Asian lives will always matter as well.”

As members of the Groton Youth Collective are moving to different states, she said they will bring their experience with them.

“I definitely think the power these people brought to the group is always going to be within them because they were just amazing,” Ali said, “and I felt their passion, and I felt their love for the Black community and the Asian community.” 

Moriya Phillips

After the death of George Floyd sparked the nation’s awareness about how minority communities are treated, Moriya Phillips was part a group that wanted to bring the message to Ledyard. They realized after they left the town for college how the micro-aggressions they experienced growing up in Ledyard were often accepted as normal.

So the Black Lives Matter Ledyard group, led by Phillips, Lauren Hipplewitz, Bella Langlois, and Sasha Lopez-Watson, got the conversation going in town. 

“We didn’t want to see another generation go through the same things that we did without somebody mentioning it,” Phillips said.

The group spoke to the chief of police and the mayor about the relations between the Mashantucket Pequot community and Ledyard, and spoke to the Board of Education and superintendent as well. 

She said the community effort allowed more people to share their stories. 

“I think that’s what hit me the most because us and our little stories were going to have a chain reaction to be able to facilitate some real change in the communities,” Phillips said, including a diversity committee and the school district’s efforts to hire more people of color. 

Looking forward, she wants the conversations to continue: “Just because we had a conversation once doesn’t mean everything is automatically resolved,” Phillips said. “These conversations need to keep happening because this has been years and years and years of hurt that we’ve been going through, and it’s going to take a little while for us to start to really heal — and that requires more conversation.”

Phillips, now 22, said she hopes to work in media and marketing for a hospital, areas where people of color have been under-represented. She graduated from Eastern Connecticut State University in May with a bachelor of science communications degree in applied media production, got married and moved to Florida. 

“Anywhere that I can speak up to help other people's voices be heard, I will definitely say something,” she said. 

Alexis Thornton

In 2020, Alexis Thornton spent day after day standing in downtown New London, proudly holding her Black Lives Matter sign. She marched through the streets, the words “I can’t breathe” scrawled on the silver duct tape placed across her mouth, an ode to the last words of many Black victims of police brutality.

This year, the New London native has taken her activism to Boston, where she recently moved and started a new career in hospitality and customer service. “It’s been a year of transformational growth,” the 27 year old said this week. 

Though she isn’t protesting every weekend like she used to, Thornton said she is still fighting for equality and standing up for what she believes in. 

“I haven’t been on the front lines in a while but the activist inside of me that was born last summer is here to stay,” she said. 

Thornton, who runs a photography business throughout New England, was even inspired to use her business to make a statement and show all her patrons what she believes in.

 “Being an activist inspired me to change my business logo,” said Thornton, owner of A. Thornton Photography. “One of the o’s in my last name has been changed to a black power fist. I am in love with this logo because it truly exemplifies who I am. Bold, beautiful, proud and, of course, Black.

Thornton said she hopes that all of her fellow activists who marched, stood and chanted with her last summer in southeastern Connecticut — and across the country — will continue their work. Because, she said, there is still a lot of work to be done.

“We still have a lot of changes that need to be done as a nation,” said Thornton. “This past year has us moving in the right direction but we are still too far from equality."

Serena Valentin

When Serena Valentin went to a protest last summer organized by Ben Ostrowski in her hometown of East Lyme, she was inspired by the excitement and energy from the people calling for change.

“I felt like I couldn’t just leave and not do anything else,” Valentin said.

She approached Ostrowski about how to get more involved, as did more people, which ultimately led to a 400-member Facebook group, East Lyme for Black Lives Matter. The group started gathering testimonials from people in town and presenting them to the Board of Education. Leaders of the group applied in the fall for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and changed the group’s name to Southeastern Connecticut Organization for Racial Equity.

The organization has met with the Board of Education and police chief, made presentations to the Board of Selectmen about declaring racism a public health crisis in East Lyme and contacted people from other schools, towns and organizations. The group fundraised for scholarships for students of color, with the goal of expanding the program. The group received a grant to provide more inclusive classroom materials to teachers and to support a student activism group at the high school.

Valentin, 22, the director of operations for SCORE, who recently graduated from Western Connecticut State University with a bachelor of science degree in music education, is half Puerto Rican and half Lebanese. She said growing up in East Lyme, she tried to blend in with the school community and didn’t talk about the foods and language she experienced at home and didn’t see diversity in her teachers.

She said she has seen changes in her community over the past year. The East Lyme Board of Education and superintendent have been very involved with diversity, equity and inclusion work, such as a minority recruitment effort, a districtwide DEI Committee and a five-year equity audit. The group also found meeting with the police chief very informative and plans to share the information with the community.

Valentin, who will continue her work with SCORE, said she was already passionate about education and social justice. But she has learned so much over the past year from talking to people and her co-directors, who are doing everything from DEI work at colleges to studying inequities in the healthcare system.

Valentin recently moved to Oregon and is teaching elementary school music in a public school district. She plans to get involved with the equity committee in the school district. She hopes to give students a voice in the music classroom and show them to embrace who they are and not hide aspects of themselves.

“You have to see students as the whole person, and their diverse backgrounds and their culture is part of who they are,” she said.

Day Staff Writer Taylor Hartz contributed to this report.

k.drelich@theday.com