Nominated by: Stacey Abrams, Fair Fight Action founder, former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives
Age: 34
Location: Atlanta
At 35, Melody Oliphant has already spent nearly a decade working to improve the lives of Georgians, starting as a finance assistant for Stacey Abrams’s historic gubernatorial race. These days, she works as the executive director of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, a grassroots collective formed in 2021 that has helped block the passage of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill and secured millions of dollars for the repair of Title 1 schools.
“Melody Oliphant is the executive director of the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, a transformative collective that is quietly building power in a time of authoritarian consolidation and the intentional erasure of those who would fight back. GYJC is a youth-led, multiracial movement that trains and empowers young people to advocate for all of us on the issues that shape our communities: education, economic justice, and civic participation. Like Melody, the work is smart and strategic and the tactics are exportable—hallmarks of real change agents. Melody deftly guides hands-on, real-life training in advocacy and engagement, emboldening marginalized youth to lead the most widespread and effective organizing across Georgia. Most impressive, the work is led by the very people most affected by the challenges they’re working to change. Under Melody’s leadership, they combine data, policy insight, and deep community relationships to move real outcomes—from fair funding for schools to stronger youth representation in decision-making.” —Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams: In a moment when young people have every right to be cynical, what do you say to give them hope?
Melody Oliphant: I believe that hope is a practice. You have to choose it for yourself every day, and that’s hard to do in this moment. For each of us to feel hopeful, we have to feel seen in that struggle first. As a millennial, I often remind my generation and folks older than I am that first-time voters this year were 10 when Trump was elected the first time, 12 when Covid first hit and isolated the world, and 13 when the insurrection at the Capitol took place. For many young people, instability isn’t the exception, it’s the only political reality they’ve ever known. And every day we see powerful people and corporations harm our communities without accountability.
In my work, I remind young people that accountability is going to come and that we have the power to make it happen. Within that, I often think of Julianna, a 24-year-old EMT from Alpharetta whom I met during her first visit to the [Georgia state] Capitol last year. I helped introduce her to her state representative right off the Georgia State House floor. When I asked her about her visit at the end of the day, she said, “This is so much better than being on Instagram.” At GYJC, we believe every small action like that one matters—every call, every door, every vote, every conversation. That collective power adds up, and we’ve seen it change policy, change elections, and change lives across Georgia.
When we watched 400,000 new Democratic primary voters show up to the polls in Texas or the firing of Kristi Noem at DHS, these moments remind us that ordinary people can still achieve the extraordinary in our country.
Abrams: What makes GYJC unique and enviable?
Oliphant: GYJC makes it possible for even more young Georgians to step into their power earlier and with more support, knocking on doors or showing up to the Capitol for the first time at 14 years old. I knocked on my first door in my hometown of Alpharetta for Jon Ossoff when I was 25. At the time, Senator Ossoff was running to flip the U.S. House seat once held by Newt Gingrich, something no one thought possible.
In a world where politicians and organizations often take credit for wins they didn’t create, we avoid doing that at all costs because we believe in putting power back where it belongs: with voters and with young Georgians taking action to transform what is possible for our state. Last year, GYJC knocked 150,000 doors across the state of Georgia in the historic Public Service Commission elections where 22 counties in Georgia that voted for Trump in 2024 voted for a Democrat in 2025, flipping the state for the first time at the state level in nearly 20 years. Every conversation we had with a voter mattered and yet it also can’t explain the wave we saw across the state last year. That victory belongs to the voters of Georgia, particularly Black voters.
What is so special about GYJC is our genuine commitment to year-round organizing and building real community. Last week, I was leaving the Capitol with JC, Aidan, Julian, and Ava, all Georgia Tech students who met through GYJC and now seem like best friends. That’s the power of GYJC, finding your people and finding your impact alongside folks who have a bias towards action even when the world feels heavy and isolating. That power stems from our commitment to show up as our authentic selves, conquer our fears, speak truth to power, and have fun doing it, even in spaces where we ought to feel intimidated by systems and structures that have not been set up for us.
Abrams: How do youth-led formations like GYJC reshape where power sits in Georgia and across the South?
Oliphant: GYJC is all about real relationships and consistency. Many of the young Georgians involved with GYJC each knocked on over a thousand doors last year. We showed up to school board meetings every single month in eight school districts across the state. Just a few years ago, lawmakers rarely saw young people in the Capitol beyond school field trips. We launched Youth at the Capitol to bring young Georgians into the Capitol every Thursday and see the full life cycle of the legislative session in Georgia.
When we share with lawmakers that we knocked on 150,000 doors last year, they’re floored by it. When we show up in the Capitol, lawmakers know our names and they know our work. To build real relationships with lawmakers and with voters, you have to have real consistency. Every day, we reach out to the voters of Georgia to remind them of their power. Every week, we talk with lawmakers to remind them of the people they were elected to serve. We help young Georgians see themselves in this world and understand that we have a right to take up space.
Abrams: What shared experiences are bringing Black, brown, LGBTQ+, working-class, and allied young Georgians together to organize across difference and diversity?
Oliphant: Last spring, the Department of Education issued the now infamous “Dear Colleague” letter that led to the dismantling of student resource centers that served Black students, Latino students, women, and LGBTQ students. Trump’s Billionaire Bailout Bill delivered $1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest one percent while cutting more than $1.1 trillion from food assistance and healthcare programs used by the poorest Americans. As Georgia builds some of the largest ICE detention centers in the nation and allowed the largest single site raid to take place outside Savannah last year, our state quietly ranks fourth highest in ICE arrests. All the while, the Republican majority in the Georgia State Senate lies to our faces about reining in Georgia Power’s rate hikes. Meanwhile Georgia Power executives, who make millions of dollars each year, acknowledge that 80 percent of those rate hikes are due to prospective data centers where tech billionaires and mega corporations receive massive tax incentives and everyday Georgians foot the bill.
Taken together, these decisions tell a clear story: the same government willing to target immigrant families, eliminate support for students, and make life more expensive for working people continues to protect the most powerful from any sense of accountability. The truth is that, right now, we have an authoritarian government at the federal level that is working to break our solidarity while eroding our rights, normalizing abuse, and creating an upside-down economy. In many ways, that strategy helped deliver Trump the presidency in 2024 by convincing millions of Americans that no politician is different from another and that government will never work for them.
Young people organizing in Georgia understand that none of these fights are separate from one another. They’re part of the same fight over who our government works for. Last year’s victories in Georgia, Virginia, and New Jersey showed us that when we fight for each other, we can never lose. Because in the end, the most powerful force in democracy is still the simple act of people deciding to show up for one another.
Abrams: What’s the best way to show up for young people in Georgia right now?
Oliphant: The best way to show up for young people in Georgia is to believe in us. Folks are so quick to count out the South or understand our communities as a monolith trapped in the Civil War and Jim Crow, but the truth is that white supremacy informs policy and shapes power all over this country. We have to see the systems that harm us with clear eyes to dismantle them, and we must feel seen and heard ourselves to have the courage to keep fighting.
Young Georgians want to feel supported, whether that’s in our schools or in our neighborhoods. I don’t pretend to speak for every young person in the state of Georgia, but I can say that the young folks at GYJC would love for folks to follow along and cheer us on from Instagram, come and knock doors or make calls to voters with us, or chip in to help power our work.
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