Harlemite Aaliyah Guillory Nickens has gone from being arrested on and off for combating as an adolescent to being a fighter on behalf of younger individuals who take care of the identical struggles she did.
“No person wakes up as a foul child … there are issues that result in that,” mentioned Nickens, 23, who discovered herself in handcuffs 4 or 5 occasions between age 15 and 16. She mentioned for her, there was nobody addressing how younger individuals get to that time of falling into crime and dangerous habits, and since she handled it firsthand, she determined to deal with it herself.
“I’m going to be that particular person for these different younger individuals,” Nickens mentioned she informed herself on the time she selected to redirect her life.
As we speak, Nickens runs a number of organizations, working to enhance her group and Black communities throughout the nation, all whereas being a scholar — at the moment a felony justice main at BMCC and an intern at Columbia College College of Skilled Research. She’s contemplating Howard Regulation College as her subsequent step.
She based Extra Than a Statistic (MTS) in 2020 after the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery, working with younger people who find themselves typically seen as a statistic and constructing them into justice leaders. “Whether or not it’s them being an activist, entrepreneur, artist, political … we prepare them into being that by educating them learn how to become involved in a group and learn how to be a frontrunner in a optimistic method,” Nickens mentioned.
Nickens and her father, Larry Nickens, who handled comparable struggles when he was a teen in Harlem, co-lead the Inheritor B&B Greatest & Brightest Academy, a youth improvement group, and his avenue attire firm, Goody Graphics. They launched the favored “Make Harlem Nice Once more” line of hats and hoodies final summer season.
Redemption story
As an adolescent, Nickens discovered herself concerned in hassle typically, entering into fights in school and lashing out, regardless of being a superb scholar. She understands the foundation of it was that she was offended about her circumstances, which she says usually are not distinctive to many younger Black children in Harlem and past. She struggled with poverty, being surrounded by crime, and different points; having to maneuver from place to put; and watching her father need to work as an alternative of having the ability to spend time together with her.
“When it got here to that high quality time that different households might obtain as a result of they’re capable of simply stay freely, I wasn’t receiving that as a result of my dad needed to work lots,” Nickens mentioned. Her father did ensure to attend all of her recitals and performances, she clarified.
“Whenever you take a look at my dad, you wouldn’t even assume that I used to be getting arrested, as a result of my dad is such an awesome dad, however no person actually appears into the foundation causes of the difficulty … Folks weren’t actually understanding me or making an attempt to know me,” Nickens mentioned. “I used to be so offended as a result of I felt like I used to be caught … I felt like I used to be born into it, so that is how my life goes to go. I don’t have another alternative however to get arrested … have children early, be on welfare.”
It was after her final arrest, when she noticed how abysmal the circumstances can be behind bars resulting from how younger individuals have been handled, and in addition seeing her father break down in tears throughout his testimony on her behalf, that she was impressed to alter issues.
Being launched to packages like Soul Sisters Management Collective made Nickens perceive the school-to-prison pipeline and that her circumstances as a younger Black woman have been systemic and designed in a method for her to fall into these damaging patterns.
“All the pieces began clicking,” Nickens mentioned. “You make the alternatives of the way you need to transfer and the way you need to stay in life. Yeah, you’re dealt these ‘Carter palms,’ however you don’t have to remain in these circumstances.”
Nickens went on to hitch civic and justice organizations just like the New York Justice League and Nationwide Motion Community. She later accepted a paid alternative as a marketing campaign organizer with Youth Signify from 2022 till this previous January. She mentioned she was chosen over older candidates who might have had higher educational resumés, as a result of none of them had her sort of lived expertise. As her first order of enterprise, she created a youth committee of 13–20 younger individuals. It was right here that she was capable of ship sources to younger individuals reminiscent of meals, MetroCards, and stipends. She additionally discovered the ins and outs of organizing, and carries that data at this time.
In Extra Than a Statistic, Nickens works with and brings younger individuals aboard with comparable tales to hers, with the intent of reworking their lives, whether or not from gang involvement, jail, homelessness, and many others.
Since February, she and the cohort have travelled to a number of cities, together with Chicago and Boston, chatting with college students in public and different colleges, which have probably the most youth dealing with limitations, and interesting them in changing into civically concerned and bettering their lives. In addition they collaborated with different social justice organizations in these cities.
Along with her justice work together with her personal group, working together with her father, and being a full-time scholar, Nickens additionally runs a haircare enterprise.
Together with her father’s “Make Harlem Nice Once more” model, Nickens says she taught him the significance of telling a narrative to attach with audiences in advertising, which bolstered its progress in reputation within the final eight months.
It can be crucial for Nickens to reward her father and spotlight the picture of Black single fathers as a result of the media doesn’t do this.
“Once I’m sharing about my story and the way far I obtained, it wouldn’t have been this manner if it wasn’t for my father,” Nickens mentioned. “Lots of people fail, they usually crash out as a result of they simply don’t have an awesome assist system. My assist system wasn’t 10 individuals, it was one particular person, and that one particular person was my dad … That’s how a lot assist he gave me.
“He was a single mum or dad, however he was a single father elevating a daughter … It’s not like he knew the ropes on learn how to elevate a younger woman,” Nickens mentioned. “There have been a number of issues he might have achieved improper that he did proper … it’s vital for me to call that.”
Nickens is grateful and proud to be alongside her biggest assist — her father —within the work they’re doing collectively and individually.
“It looks like we’re constructing a legacy to me,” Nickens mentioned. “It provides me a healthful feeling, like we’re doing this work collectively, and we’re constructing a reputation for each of us … It simply feels real and genuine.”
