For many in Chattanooga, it hurts in the worst place.
“Hopelessness,” said Michael Gilliland. “It’s the strongest feeling in Chattanooga.”
Especially among communities of poverty and color, the feeling is that all things – from horizon to horizon – are outside their control. Condition of schools. The way they’re policed. Jobs and where to find them. Homes and how to keep them. It’s as if the levers of society are well hidden, and pushed and pulled by other people.
Gilliland, 35, would know. He’s board chairman for Chattanooga Organized for Action, a nonprofit working alongside grassroots progressive movements in the city.
“The feeling in town is that these decisions are made by other people. The decisions are already made, the future is set, and it doesn’t matter what we do. At the end of the day, the result will be the same. It’s not apathy. They really feel like they can’t change it. The train is moving and they have no control over it,” he said.