NCLM Volume 70, Issue 4, 2020

SOUTHERN CITY QUARTER 4 2020 22 avoiding a special education program, but being admitted to the special progress program. He skipped 8th grade. “That always made me ask, how many peo- ple are being written off because of the absence of people to speak up for them?” Following high school, Middleton moved south to attend North Carolina A&T, where he picked up advocacy for him- self. He organized voter registrations and various campaigns on campus, led a student organization protesting apartheid in South Africa, and fell in with a group of similar-minded friends, which included Jesse Jackson Jr. “Civil rights and philos- ophy nerds,” Middleton remembers them. After graduating, he moved to Durham to attend Duke Divinity School, where he stayed. Finally, in 2017, he joined the city council, taking with him the lessons gleaned from his mother’s involvement. “As I sit on the council now, I ask myself, ‘Who are we leaving behind? Who are we discounting? Who are we leaving out? Who are we not advocating for?’” Middleton is a case study on citizen engagement. Though not unusual among local government leaders, Middleton’s commitment extends slightly further, which is a valuable approach in a rapidly growing city like Durham. He fears that key issues will be drowned out amidst the growing noise. “I encourage people all the time, ‘Hey, flood our emails!’” There are many groups that do. There are others that don’t. To Middleton, remembering the feeling of administrative dismissal, that’s an invitation for outreach. “The thing I always talk about is voice. Voice. Voice in the process, because I almost lost mine as a child,” Middleton said. “It’s important we go out to them and impress upon them that their voices are just as important. Because I had my voice preserved through activism and interven- tion, my thing today is to make sure that people's voices are not muted in any way because it has a direct impact on policy.” That style of policy creation is by-the-book civic leadership. Middleton embraces com- munity engagement not simply as a step in pushing policy across the finish line, but as a means to developing the policy itself. It’s in this area that Middleton really stands out, in a sweet spot among advocacy and governance. continued from page 21 Photo Credit: Ben Brown. Photo Credit: Ben Brown. As I sit on the council now, I ask myself, ‘Who are we leaving behind? Who are we discounting? Who are we leaving out? Who are we not advocating for?’