A Sweltering Summer Day in Atlanta’s West End

Children pose in front of a professional backdrop staged between a beauty supply store and a Goodwill Thrift Store on a sweltering summer day in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood. They proudly stop to pose before running back into the street to play.

The photographer speaks about the photo:
"The Atlanta summer heat swelters around these six young boys as they pose in front of my popup backdrop. Set up in between a Goodwill and a Beauty supply store, I recognize that this environment is both their playground and their home. While their imagination runs wild with thoughts of sports, creatures, and fantasy I was able to capture them for just a moment before they ran off into the concrete jungle that is the West End. I believe that the environment that children grow up in is important to provide them with structure and shelter but the community is equally as important- being surrounded by a good support system of friends and family will always shine the brightest in one's upbringing."

Apart of the Entitlements Temporary Exhibit at The National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
About the exhibit: As violence and inequality cause scarcity and displace populations, impacted groups are frequently discussed as data sets and given impersonal categorizations such as refugee and asylum seeker. Entitlements humanizes conflict and insecurity around the world through compelling images of children at play and at rest. Featuring the photography of Authority Collective photographers Diana Cervantes, Jasmine Clarke, Meghan Dhaliwal, Stephanie Eley, Alexis Hunley, and Danielle Villasana, Entitlements is a global survey of childhood experiences. It celebrates the resilience of children denied the just and secure environments to which they are entitled. The children embody hope and inspire an urgency to uphold rights and protections detailed in documents such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration for Human Rights.

Globally, 420 million children are living in active conflict zones. More than half of people with refugee status are children and youth. Many are victims of detention, trafficking, exploitation, and family separation. In the United States, 13 million children reside in households below the federal poverty line, and 2.5 million American children are experiencing homeless. Systemic injustices are evident in trends such as the school-to prison pipeline, a system that disproportionately refers Black children and children with learning differences to discipline by police instead of school administrators. This results in arrests and juvenile detention as opposed to counseling and educational alternatives. Outside of school, overpoliced neighborhoods render parks and playgrounds opportunities for interaction with law enforcement instead of places to learn, grow, and thrive.

Despite this, children remain incredibly resilient. From children playfully climbing trees in one of the world's most dangerous cities to displaced children skipping rope and blowing bubbles, Entitlements depicts the persistence of childhood creativity and the unwavering youthful quest for exploration. Human rights laws and declarations charge us with securing our futures by providing environments where children are not criminalized and are free to realize their potential. When children reflect and imagine, their capacities to learn and build relationships are strengthened. As they find ways to process hardship, they also develop the skills required to become our next generation of leaders, advocates, and innovators.