Akilah Favors

Department and Institution: 
Sociology, UC Berkeley
Bio/CV: 

Akilah Favors is an energetic free-spirited activist who loves to smile. She is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at UC Berkeley who researches race, class, social movements, gentrification, and the politics of inclusion. Her work investigates how Black middle-class organizers mobilize low-income renters against urban displacement rooted in neoliberalism and systemic racism in Atlanta, GA. She employs urban ethnography and in-depth interviews to analyze how both practices of division and solidarity influence the sustainability of Blackness in the city. Her work contributed to a national report with the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Grants. Akilah received her B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College and her M.A. in Sociology from UC Berkeley. She passionately serves as the associate director of the HBCU pipeline program, Summer Scholars of Race at UC Berkeley. In her spare time, Akilah loves weightlifting, biking, traveling, promoting Black businesses, competing in games, and hanging with family.

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