NCA Center for Communication, Community Collaboration, & Change

For Kiya Sellers, Activism is the Key to Social Change

Posted on January 27, 2022

By Jessica Golden, Class of ’23 MA Candidate, UNCG, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Kiya Sellers is a graduate student in the UNCG Communication Studies program. For Kiya, social justice and activism are extremely important for creating change, not just immediately but also for the long term by addressing oppression at a systemic level. Kiya sees education and organizing, along with radically critiquing norms, as the best pathways to dismantling those systems of oppression. Kiya is someone with a marginalized and intersectional identity, not having the luxury of ignoring social injustices due to the constant effect they have on day-to-day life.

Kiya is proud to be constantly engaging with some form of activism, particularly those involving mutual aid efforts. Kiya attends protests, donates to bail out funds directly impacting Black and queer folks, and participates in organizations geared toward social justice.

One impactful experience Kiya recounts was participating in and facilitating Democracy Tables in fall 2020. The virtual conversations focused on voting and voting rights, hosted by the Greensboro History Museum and the UNCG Communication Studies Department and funded by the National Communication’s Center for Communication, Community and Collaboration, and Change.  Kiya loves learning and interacting with people who are passionate about advocating for political change especially in terms of voting and democracy. For that reason, Kiya found everyone that attended the Democracy Tables to be engaging and inspiring, especially when it came to them sharing their stories and experiences.