#GDTBATH: Cameron Baker

If you were to ask a younger Cameron Baker what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have adamantly answered that he’d be a politician or judge.

He spent his time in high school in student government, and when he was getting ready to attend college, Baker had his eyes set on whatever would best prepare him for law school.

Those careers, Baker figured, were the ways he could make a positive impact in rural communities like his hometown of Turkey, North Carolina, in Sampson County. But then he took his first human development and family studies course — Social Justice in Education — in the UNC School of Education and changed his plans — and his major.

Baker realized he didn’t need to be a politician or judge to make change. He just needed to empower others.

“It really made me change because it made me realize that I didn’t have to be in a place of societal power,” said Baker, a Carolina junior. “You can have change, you can create social justice through any avenue. I didn’t have to go that route to produce what I’m trying to do.”

The School of Education’s Human Development and Family Studies Program, Baker said, challenges him to take a closer look at how people’s lived experiences shape them and how accounting for various perspectives is key to making an impact.

“You really can’t create social change unless you’re able to put every single person’s perspective in mind, so cultural competency is important to create social change, and human development and family studies helps me become culturally competent,” he said.

The Tar Heel is using that mindset and the knowledge he’s gained in his classes as an intern for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the NAACP. Working alongside chapter leaders, Baker is serving as a social media coordinator for the organization, sharing information on topics ranging from COVID-19 vaccine clinics to news on upcoming legislation with members of the community.

“What the community needs to hear, that’s what we’re going to put out there,” Baker said. “I feel as though I’ve really been able to help through those things. I’m not just here to help UNC, but also the surrounding community.”

Baker says he is proud to be learning to empower and uplift others by working with an organization that has played a role in countless civil rights advances for more than a century. The role has confirmed his passion for creating change himself while also showing him a model for how to make change happen.

“It brings me strength knowing that I’m able to go to individuals that have, throughout history, uplifted my own community,” he said. “Whenever I’m able to tell people I work with the NAACP, it just brings me joy to know that I’m working for an organization that has its hands in many, many, many different things that have pushed the Black community to where it is today. It makes me feel as though I can empower my own people.”

Though law school is still in the back of Baker’s mind, he first plans on applying what he’s learning in the classroom and in the community to towns like Turkey, where he has not only seen but experienced inequalities firsthand. Small, rural towns, he said, are often overlooked for major cities, but the students there have as much potential and talent. They simply need the opportunities others have — a change Baker hopes to lead.

“Working with the NAACP branch to meet astonishing Black individuals, who are inspiring major change and making positive differences for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community, inspires me to do and be more. I want to be a figure like this for my community — one that my nieces and nephews, students and other youth will benefit from greatly,” he said. “I can be the representation that’s necessary for my community.”