Story By Vincent Andrunas, Writer & Photojournalist
Published November 1, 2019
Longtime social activist Dwayne Crenshaw and former San Diego City Council president Tony Young met over coffee in 2014, during a controversy about zoning in Barrio Logan. They were once competitors for a City Council seat, but both now agreed that the neighborhood’s residents had been pushed aside while powerful interests were deciding what should happen to their community.
The two had the intelligence and foresight to see that there was a pressing need to empower people to make a difference in their own urban communities. They wanted to increase local leadership and civic engagement, and to demonstrate that all the toxicity and the hate and the talking down to people didn’t have to happen. They realized that if they could come together as former rivals, they could show the community that we can all be more civil while also doing better for the places we live.