About Us
The Ferguson Uprising
was Only the Beginning
Creative Reaction Lab was founded in support of the Uprising in Ferguson. Today, Creative Reaction Lab is building a youth-led, community-centered movement of a new type of Civic Leader: Redesigners for Justice.
Our mission combines education and civic engagement for racial justice & healthy living.
Creative Reaction Lab’s mission is to educate, train, and challenge Black and Latina/ae/o/e/x youth to become leaders designing healthy and racially equitable communities. We’re challenging the belief that only adults with titles (e.g. mayors, CEOs, etc.) have the power and right to challenge racial and health inequities. However, we are conscious that it’s not just the work of the people that have been historically underinvested to dismantle oppressive systems. Therefore, we are rallying an intergenerational movement of Redesigners for Justice.
2020-2021 Annual Report
A Year of Reimagining and Redesigning
“[Today’s youth are] the most politically engaged, socially conscious, diverse and informed generation of young people since the 60s.”
Elaine Welteroth, former Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue
Our Theory of Change.
Foundational Belief: As are all systems within our society, systems of oppression, inequality, and inequity are by design; therefore, they can and must be redesigned.
Challenge: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2050, Black and Latinx communities will make up almost 40% of the United States population, many of whom are currently youth. Yet, these communities face disproportionate racial and health inequities that limit social, economic, and cultural growth. While Black and Latinx youth want to improve well-being for themselves and their families, friends, communities, and culture, they currently feel unheard, unsupported, or excluded from opportunities to amplify their power and work toward liberation.
At Creative Reaction Lab, we acknowledge that youth historically have been undervalued architects of change and culture. We believe that if we equip Black and Latina/ae/o/e/x youth with:
Consciousness,
training and tools to build consciousness* around context, history, and power surrounding race and ethnicity in the United States
Community,
a community for cultural healing, safety, and collective mobilization
and Power.
access to historically centered power through institutions, funding, and resources
then they will have the capacity to design interventions that will dismantle existing racial and health inequities; thus co-creating a society that embraces the humanity, rights, and power of Black and Latina/ae/o/e/x people.
*We define consciousness as deep awareness of one's own thoughts + of the society in which one lives, allowing for critical analysis of the prevailing narratives one sees + experiences.
Pivotal Movements in Creative Reaction Lab’s History
During the Summer of 2018, Creative Reaction Lab held its first Design to Better [Our Community] Summer Academy. In the two years of the program, youth participants launched four projects around mental/physical wellbeing for youth of color (2018) and two projects addressing youth political apathy (2019).
Antionette Carroll, Founder of Creative Reaction Lab, pinpoints one of the contributing factors of oppression: designing for exclusion. That is why she has made it her mission to think of her work as system building rather than object building. What if we could redesign for inclusion?
Antionette Carroll was living in Ferguson in 2014 and part of the local effort to change conditions in her community -- and saw a need to reach out to involve more people in the solution. A passionate social entrepreneur, Antionette founded Creative Reaction Lab to empower community members to address local issues and become changemakers.
In September 2019, Creative Reaction Lab convened 25 Black and Latinx youth to develop interventions to address gun violence in the St. Louis region.
