Alexandria McKenzie: My Summer with the City of Boston’s Equity & Inclusion Cabinet

Alexandria McKenzie (CAS ’26) was the 2024 City of Boston Equity & Inclusion Cabinet Summer Intern.

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Reflecting on my time at City Hall, I see a summer full of creativity, innovation, and new insights and perspectives. I was honored to work alongside the Racial Justice team in the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet of the City of Boston and learned from some of the most innovative, diverse, and inspiring leaders of our city today.  When I was selected as the BU Initiative on Cities (IOC)/Howard Thurman Center (HTC) Intern, the primary focus of my position was to work with the Reparations Task Force. However, my time at City Hall touched on many different facets of government work, including analyzing racial justice policy, writing memos and policy recommendations, administrative work, and comparative research. My position granted me the opportunity to experience the unique qualities of an equity-based position in government, full of collaborations both across City Hall and partnerships throughout the greater Boston community.

Working with the Reparations Task Force was what initially drew me to apply. After spending most of my academic career studying the manifestations of colonialism in our existing governance systems, I was eager to contribute my educational insight. I lived through the experience of confronting these historical injustices. Despite how necessary and possible I viewed reparations to be, I quickly learned the complexities that go into achieving them through local government. Not only are reparations a contested topic in the public eye, but there are loads of discourses on how they can be enacted in a way that is maximally restorative. Reparations are personal, and their implementation is deeply dependent on area-specific ties to slavery. This made my work slightly more challenging but all the more rewarding. It also leads me to one of the most valuable lessons I learned this summer. Since there was no apparent framework for the “correct” way to institute reparations—and considering the diverse needs and wants of constituents—my success came from creating new possibilities out of the resources accessible to me.

I conducted a comparative analysis of city—and state-level reparations initiatives nationwide. The analysis includes research timelines, methods of implementation, and public responses, along with recommendations on how Boston can apply successful results to its own reparations efforts. My findings will be utilized alongside the ongoing work conducted by the Task Force’s research teams to inform how the Task Force and the City of Boston can navigate the intricacies of reparations implementation in the future!

My favorite part of the internship was the opportunity to take part in the Ballots Behind Bars Project, a collaboration with the Healing Our Land Initiative (HOLI). HOLI is a nonprofit organization committed to ending the disenfranchisement of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals by providing economic, legal, emotional, and educational support. This project is instrumental to the empowering and uplifting of communities that are disproportionately affected by incarceration and disenfranchisement. We worked alongside HOLI to hold weekly volunteer engagements at Suffolk County House of Correction and Nashua Street Jail, in which volunteers provide essential educational information about upcoming elections, increase access to voting materials, and facilitate conversions about voting that are instrumental to giving incarcerated individuals the representation they are entitled to. I was drawn to this project for two key reasons: 1) Its commitment to dismantling the systematic disenfranchisement of marginalized communities through service, and 2) the fostering of community and collaboration to do so.  I was lucky enough to collaborate with community organizers, scholars, and formerly incarcerated individuals to strategize how to best empower and uplift the voices of incarcerated people. I found my role in this project by offering logistical input on how we can best implement these programs in a way that is maximally educational and beneficial. The Racial Justice team and I advised organizers through the complexities of carrying out the project’s visions. While I had researched systematic disenfranchisement and how to fight it at a macro level, implementing it at the local level pushed me to see complexities I had never considered in the past. From time limitations to language barriers and different levels of academic proficiency, navigating these nuances highlighted the importance of responsiveness and adaptability when serving communities through local government.

Another notable accomplishment of the summer was my work on forwarding racial justice-focused policy in the City of Boston. I had the privilege of working alongside Maggie Kormann, the Racial Justice team’s brilliant policy analyst and project coordinator (and a former intern). She guided me through the intricacies of researching to inform public policy that furthers the empowerment of minority communities. After a summer of learning what propels a policy forward and what makes it fall short and offering recommendations, I gained the skill and confidence to lead a policy initiative of my own.

I concluded my summer with a policy analysis and proposal on the City of Boston’s response to protests. The proposal first examined the efforts taken by the City government and Boston Police Department to respond to both small and mass protests in the past two decades, alongside legislative action that has impacted protesters’ rights. Based on this analysis, I then issued a framework for policy initiatives the City can implement to protect the rights of protestors while upholding public safety. I was able to present this proposal to Equity & Inclusion Chief Solis Cervera. While I am no longer a part of the Racial Justice Team, I am excited to say I continue to collaborate with her to see the proposal through!

Above all, my time at City Hall was an immeasurable experience. I was surrounded by a group of bright, progressive minds who taught me a plethora of lessons that I will cherish as I continue my work in politics. My greatest thanks go to the Equity and Inclusion team, the Initiative on Cities, and the Howard Thurman Center for making it all possible!