Mattie Harris stands in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in spring 2023 after discussing the dangers of flavored vape pens with members of Congress. Courtesy photo.
Boston College student Mattie Harris visited the White House last week as a member of Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that helps young people fight for reproductive health.
As part of a weeklong conference, Harris and more than a dozen of her peers met with Harold Phillips, who directs the Office of National AIDS Policy.
Harris says she told Phillips about the plight of Black women living with HIV in her home state of Louisiana, which ranks second in the nation in HIV diagnosis rates.
“We talked a little bit about what we do and encouraged the White House to continue to support our respective communities,” says Harris, a second-year student in the master’s program at the School of Social Work.
The meeting marked the latest step on her journey to reaching her long-term career goal: harnessing the power of advocacy to improve the well-being of Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ populations. In particular, she envisions herself working as a consultant for organizations focused on making the world a more just and inclusive place for historically marginalized groups.
“The consulting route is something I’m looking forward to exploring more,” says Harris, a macro student who studies in the Afrocentric Social Work field of practice, “whether that’s helping an organization develop a community health needs assessment or reconfigure their staffing plans.”
Harris credits BC with giving her the skills to achieve her career dreams.
She says her professional ambitions came into focus during her first few months on the Heights, when she began fieldwork with BC BIGS, a program in which students mentor young people.
Harris directed biweekly group activities for 40 youth in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, focusing on improving their skills in science, technology, engineering, and math.
One day, she had an epiphany about her career, a realization that has come to shape her path to becoming a staunch advocate for social justice.
“I realized that I would feel the most impactful and have the most success if I advocated for policies that would help students like the ones I was working with,” says Harris. “If I worked with organizations who worked with young people to make sure that we’re providing the most magical experience that we can.”
In mid-September, Mattie Harris and her peers with Advocates for Youth discussed the need to decriminalize and destigmatize HIV/AIDS wth the director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Courtesy photo.
Harris parlayed her internship at BC BIGS into a summer fellowship from the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, a research and policy center at Harvard University that encourages graduate students to spend part of their careers in public service.
She worked for the Boston Public Health Commission from May to August, analyzing the city’s Community Health Needs Assessment and Improvement Plan with an eye toward making it more equitable and accessible to marginalized populations.
“The biggest takeaway was understanding how community health needs assessments and improvement plans work, what they look like, and how they should be analyzed,” says Harris. “I learned how the city of Boston operates, and I would definitely say the fellowship was of the experiences that helped shape my career path.”
Harris came closer to reaching her career goals earlier this month, when she won a Minority Fellowship from the Council on Social Work Education. In addition to receiving a $10,000 award, she will learn how to deliver mental health services to racial and ethnic minorities.
“I think this training will allow me to take a deeper dive into how I want to address mental health in the communities that I work with and the community that I’m from,” she says.
Harris attributes her commitment to addressing complex social challenges to her upbringing. She comes from a family of social workers, educators, and librarians, she says, noting that her drive to improve the lives of the most vulnerable was “instilled in me through family tradition.”
Harris received a bachelor’s degree in social work from Dillard University in New Orleans, where she launched an anonymous hotline for students in need of free condoms, pregnancy tests, and emergency contraceptive pills. After graduating in 2022, she entered the master’s program at BCSSW, wasting no time in continuing her education in the helping profession.
Mattie Harris. Courtesy photo.
Harris chose BCSSW for the Black Leadership Initiative, a cohort-based program that prepares students to solve complex social challenges facing Black communities. She says Samuel Bradley, Jr., an assistant professor who co-founded the BLI, sold her on the program during a virtual meeting in 2021.
“He was just telling me about the Black Leadership Initiative,” says Harris. “Nothing scripted, just genuinely having a conversation. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I can definitely get down with this.”
She credits the BLI with easing her transition from her hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, to Boston. “The BLI provides me a community that I can go to for anything,” she says. “We all know each other, we all love each other, we all fellowship with each other.”
Bradley says the School is lucky to have Harris, who was recently named inaugural president of BC’s chapter of the National Association of Black Social Workers.
“For such a young person, Mattie has already established herself in national advocacy circles,” he says. “I think her career will continue to thrive as she looks for opportunities to advocate on behalf of herself and her community. I can see a future wherein Mattie is one day a CEO or representative working to support Black communities.”
Harris recently started a second field practicum with Back of the Napkin Consulting, a firm in Newton, Massachusetts, that helps organizations create tools, strategies, and frameworks to make a positive impact in their communities. She plans to meet with legislators to advocate for policies and programs that would support Black populations.
“I never want to stop seeing more of my people in spaces that I’ve had the honor of being in,” says Harris. “I just want to keep doing the work that I’m doing. Keep reminding people that Black people deserve to be in these spaces.”
She invokes civil rights icon John Lewis, who urged people “to speak up, to speak out, to get into what I call ‘good trouble.’” “I just want to keep doing good work and keep making good trouble,” she says.
