Yahoo Lifestyle Philadelphia Mayoral Candidate Helen Gym Wants to Change How People Live
On a warm Sunday in May, West Philadelphia’s Malcolm X Park is starting to fill with a diverse gaggle of supporters for mayoral candidate Helen Gym, whose yard signs dot the front yards lining the park. It’s a quintessentially lefty-Philly vibe: At a cookout for the unhoused, they are passing out hot dogs and Narcan while kids clamber on the playground. As I’m chatting with Gym, we’re interrupted several times, by an organizer with Act Up exchanging contact info to talk policy, by parents hoping to take pictures of “Philly’s next mayor” with their kids or grandkids, by potential voters who recognize her from TV, and by fellow progressive organizers in the city checking in.
Gym, a former teacher, longtime organizer, and, more recently, city councilmember, takes it all in stride. She’s meeting me at this campaign rally after knocking on doors in Germantown, northwest of West Philly. The campaign has been all over the city for the last several months garnering endorsements from community organizations familiar with her work on behalf of Philly schools, immigrant communities, and more.
After we conclude, I exchange hellos with local State Rep. Rick Krajewski, elected in a similar mold to Gym, backed by Philly organizing coalitions. The region has a slate of progressives in office due to, as Gym hammers home in our conversation, a decades-old progressive organizing infrastructure: there’s Krajewski, State Sen. Nikil Saval, and State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler; City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, who was the first third-party citywide candidate elected, running on the Working Families Party ticket; and Philly DA Larry Krasner.
I first learned of Gym as a Philly high schooler myself, from her organizing as a teacher and parent to return local control of Philly schools; for 17 years, the Philly public school system was controlled by the state. Notably, Gym was the only candidate to condemn the recent choice to institute a 2 p.m. curfew for unattended minors in a Center City shopping district (RIP the Gallery, I am not calling it the Fashion District). Now people across the country are taking note, too. After the elections of Boston’s Michelle Wu and then Chicago’s Brandon Johnson to mayoral seats, progressives nationally are hailing Gym’s campaign as the next big ticket in a progressive city shell-shocked by violence.
Cementing her role as the progressive challenger, Gym will be joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a big rally before the May 16 primary. While it’s anybody’s race, as of today Gym has a very slight lead in the stacked primary. Teen Vogue talked to Gym in advance of the primary about her years of work in the community, organizing alongside young people, and what progressives are up against in 2023.
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Teen Vogue: Your campaign rhetoric is hyperfocused on combating community disinvestment as a solution to safety, which some media outlets are covering as a “progressive approach to crime.”
Helen Gym: Philadelphia, in particular, has been victim to all manner of aggressive experimentation on school privatization and disinvestment that's been led by political entities and right-wing folks, but [also] just a general sense of disinvestment.
We're often called the poorest largest city in the country, but I've never thought of us as a city full of poor people. I've always thought about us as a city that keeps us people poor. Because of that, everything has to change: The budget has to change, the policies have to change, but that's not always done from City Hall, in the places where oppression, white supremacy, and racism have found their foothold. It's done in places that are working to tear those systems down.
We've worked really hard with young people to stop school closures and budget cuts and reinvest back in the mental health and well-being of young people, and arts and music in enrichment programs, not just test scores. Those things happen when we invest in young people and spend a lot of time building out separate institutions to help them build their voice and power, to really link them with intergenerational, multiracial groups, to diversify coalitions and then take on, at different points in time, really big crises.
TV: Can you share your organizing experiences with our readers?
HG: Ten years ago, a mayor shut down 30 public schools and took out almost all our nurses and counselors. Young people, educators, parents, civic leaders, and faith leaders all organized to push back against those budget cuts. And we have never stopped. We've always worked toward that invested Philadelphia that we know is possible.
When I ran for city council, you really saw the big shift in investments that were able to happen once someone came in out of this work and really leveraged all of our efforts: Restoring back those nurses and counselors and social workers, delivering safe drinking water to every school, starting a $500 million school modernization campaign for air conditioning, lead, asbestos and mold removal, new playgrounds, new schools. And we are here to finish that job.
Some of the organizing experiences were really about people who stood up when almost everybody that had the title and the power to make change threw up their hands. When our schools were being shut down, when teachers were being taken away, we organized, we mobilized, we testified, we pushed hard for renewed investments, and we won. And, again, I don't think it's nearly enough. You're seeing a huge backlash right now.
But we are undaunted nonetheless. We always knew that those [right-wing] forces were lurking, and we have trained ourselves to deliver up a diverse, big coalition of people who are invested in that safer, stronger, more prosperous city that we've been part of.
TV: For a long time, young people have been really the focus of your organizing energy. Philly is back to using serious curfews and other penalties focused specifically on youth – something that happened while I was in high school here.
HG: I come out of a world where young people have led with their voices and they have reclaimed power. Young people have been at the forefront of huge movements in Philadelphia around saving neighborhoods from gentrification and reforming our juvenile justice system. They've taken on safe drinking water in our schools and issues around healthier, breathable communities. They've taken on big health issues, making sure that there are nurses and social workers and mental health respondents in schools.
So, for me, I have always felt like young people have had an enormous amount of power, but our cities and our municipalities, they walk away from it all the time. This is a city where [more than 3,000] kids have dropped out of school since the start of the school year. We have declined on mental health support services. You can feel the dragging back and rolling the clock back on civil rights with normal activity for teens, like a shopping mall instituting a 2 p.m. curfew, and people shutting their doors when young people come. I just think that is a city that is deeply unhealthy and it's not going to actually establish a sense of safety unless the young people are actually part of the transformation and investment in Philadelphia.
My vision, my platform, and my work have been about investing in youth and childhood and the joys of being young. And I think when the city actually invests in pre-K and public education and youth jobs, and parks and recreation centers and libraries, we bring our city back to health and well-being. And it's not just a youth agenda, it's actually an economic and safety and education agenda for our city.
TV: We’ve talked about the right-wing backlash going on in response to progressive electeds and organizing right now. In part, that tried and failed in Philly. While San Francisco recalled former DA Chesa Boudin, Philly DA Larry Krasner – elected by many of the same progressive forces that are trying to get you into office – still has his seat. Do you feel daunted by that opposition or hopeful?
HG: All the obstacles that movements I've been part of have fought against the last 20 years are still here and they've definitely reared their ugly heads and are doubling down in order to hold on to the mayorship of one of the largest cities in the country. And meeting it is an equal force of people and movements who found their power outside of the traditional places. We bring an unusual level of mobilization, a diversity of people and communities coming together, and an on-the-ground level of outreach that we're hoping can break through.
But there's no question that there's an overwhelming amount of money, an overwhelming amount of establishment politics, and an overwhelming amount of reactionary, right-wing power that's coming at us right now. People who are listening: one, you should not be surprised; two, you must be prepared; and three, you have to fight because no matter what happens, movements have to thrive and continue to grow beyond political elections. That's been the most important thing for me.
The work that we've been doing in Philadelphia has been built over decades. We're here to finish the job. I'm here to finish the job I started more than three decades ago when I was a public school educator organizing in Philadelphia immigrant communities. You get the city you fight for. Nothing's gonna get handed to you. I hope people see Philadelphia as a community that has been leading time and time again, that has met crises and is now ready to take on the leadership of one of the largest cities in the country [and] deliver a big vision on safety, on economic opportunity, on a healthy climate justice agenda, and a real education agenda that changes how people actually live. A lot of people run for office, I'm running for mayor to change the way people actually live in Philadelphia.
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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