Name: Katherine Coxlittrell

Age: 18 years old 

Name of School: Rock Bridge High School

Grade in School: 12 

Location (City/State/Country): Columbia, Missouri US

Cause that you are working for: co-founder of Missouri Youth Voices

Brief description of what your work entails: 

Even when I was younger, I was involved in activism and participated in planned parenthood protests. But the thing that really led me to get involved in activism was in January of last year when my school district (Columbia Public Schools) announced that they would lift the mask mandate despite the continuing record-breaking number of Covid cases that were ravaging our community. I started to organize a protest at Rock Bridge and eventually found like-minded people across all three public high schools in Columbia (Rock Bridge, Hickman, and Battle) who wanted to protest for the reinstatement of a mask mandate. So I got in touch with everyone and organized a week-long walkout during the school day. Eventually, the school board decided to reinstate the mask mandate and that’s when I realized, “Oh, this actually works. We have the power to create change.” Then we just continued Missouri Youth Voices to initiate more change in our society.``

In one of the interviews during the mask walkouts, Katherine stated: “By showing that we’re willing to put our education on the line for the reinstatement of the mask mandate, we’re just hoping that the school board and the [Missouri] Attorney General themselves will see that it’s not something we’re going to get over. We’re mad about this. We deserve to feel safe at school. And so we’re just hoping that we at least at the bare minimum get some recognition.”

One of our biggest accomplishments is our protest against bills banning hormone therapy. We organized a protest at Jefferson City and a lot of people from all over the state and even a famous tiktoker based in Kansas City reached out and showed up at our protest. We were even featured in several national articles and got to have conversations with Missouri State House of Representative members.  

Missouri Youth Voices has also successfully held fundraisers, raising almost $1000 for Missouri Abortion Funds through a local concert and $6000 for a state-wide fundraiser. 

What inspires you to work towards this change?

At one point, I was just fed up and angry at the school district. Even though I was just one student, I knew other people were all upset. I realized that we have the ability to stand up for ourselves and have our own voice no matter our age. After school walkouts protesting the mask mandate, I decided that this was something I wanted to keep doing because we protested for change and we won at the end of the day.

Do you plan to continue your activism after graduating? 

Yes, I plan to continue my work in activism. I’m planning to study political science and strategic communication in college. I want to work in either human rights, public relations, or the democratic national committee.

What would you say to other people our age who are interested in getting involved in activism?

I would tell them to first, just do a little research to see if there are organizations in our community and if there aren’t, reach out to their friends and people with similar interests to start one. Plan fundraisers, plan donation drives, create social media accounts, and organize protests! Even if you feel insignificant as a high schooler in the grand scheme of things, your voice and your actions still matter.homeless people we connect with.