Life & Work with Kayla Oats

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kayla Oats.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started organizing in 2004 at the time I was 7 almost 8 my mother Cherraye Oats made sure all her children knew their rights and how to advocate for what’s right because my aunt is the amazing Fannie Lou Hamer (civil rights activist). With the work my mother was doing in Eupora MS, everyone thought was amazing but being in a town that was controlled mainly by white people they looked at a woman of color as a threat. So my mother was always in the schools with parents making sure that their child was being treated fair because of disability or even sexuality.

As a child I didn’t understand until my brother and I was targeted we both were in the 5th grade at the time and our school district didn’t understand the work my mother was doing, so they pushed my brother and me out of school the teacher targeted my brother because he had sickle cell anemia and started bullying him so my mother sent a recorder with him in his backpack and caught her on tape badgering him telling him he’s dumb and would never amount to anything. So students wrote letters to my mom stating my brother was constantly falling into crisis because the feather was physically abusing him. So my mother organized and went to Jackson with many more organizations such as ACLU, Southern ECHO, Activist with a purpose, Nolie Jenkins family center & plenty more organizations. And we noticed that what was happening with my brother and me is called the school-to-prison pipeline so my mother did a lawsuit against the Eupora MS school district. My mother pulled us from school and homeschooled us. While being homeschooled we started a youth group for a safe place where students could come to tell us about issues that were taking place in the school to keep us abreast of the issues we named the group YPUSH (youth pushing until something happen) we advocated to have our 1st African American school board member which we successfully won and he recently stepped down this year in 2022.

I continued to help other youth and I completed school graduating through homeschooling and went to college at EMCC (East MS Community College) I pursued a degree in culinary which I graduated with a degree, I decided to run for major being the youngest person in Eupora MS to run for a high position no one of color have ever pursued and I inspired more young people to walk on faith and exerciser their right to vote and run for positions. I continue to work with the Fannie Lou Hamer Center For Change which is a nonprofit organization my mother and the youth created. I currently work at MS State University as a chef inspiring more young people to reach to the top no matter what obstacles they come against.

We still organize and we are not going anywhere.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth ride, I had elderly people putting a stigma on me while running for mayor some things I heard was I was too young to hold a position. I had a lot of young people not voting because they thought it wasn’t counted they said it was a population count.

It was mainly the attitude of the voters. And looking back on community work, we are still working on the schools in our district because we still have underlying racial issues, academic issues, LGBTQ bullying issues, and also corporal punishment issues alongside harsh discipline issues so our work DO NOT STOP.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a youth organizer for the Fannie Lou Hamer Center For Change

I am a chef at MS State University. I am a mother of 3 kids.

I am most proud of my faith and inspiring young people to run for positions in their community because they always remind me that I had a lot of courage because they don’t think they could have done what I am done debating and challenging people to make our community better-going toe to toe with white people lol and I remind them that they are human just like I am and I will always challenge people no matter what position they sit in because all communities should be equal, beautiful and most of all safe.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
To always encourage people to stick together and give from the heart because Covid was one of those unexpected things we went through as a whole. We took major losses such as family and friends passing away. And we noticed how food went up and how we had to come together as a village and share can goods, meds, and PPE to stay healthy and protected.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change

Image Credits
MS Food Network