John, a few weeks back I had a zoom call interview for a podcast hosted by two politically-active high school juniors, Varoon Kodithala and Damian Galvan, called Polititeen.

It was one of the most in-depth interviews I've ever had. No puff podcasts here, just insightful, wise questions from the minds of two high school juniors - America's future leaders.

You can read below a summary of what we discussed, including my progressive platform and thoughts on political engagement in the age of COVID. Listen to the episode here. Hope you enjoy it!

Ted Terry, Former Mayor of Clarkston, GA., Runs for County Commissioner on Bold Progressive Platform

DeKalb County, GA – The town of Clarkston, Georgia, has been called “the most diverse square mile in America” and the Ellis Island of the South. The reason? It’s home to a sizable refugee population, thanks to resettlement programs that have been welcoming refugees to Clarkston since the 1980s.

Most recently, that commitment to resettlement has been largely overseen by the former Mayor of Clarkston from 2014 to March 2020, Ted Terry.

Elected in 2014, the city’s youngest-ever mayor—and now candidate for Georgia’s DeKalb County Super 6 Commissioner—is a progressive Democrat who was elected on his vision of making Clarkston a more welcoming, compassionate community.

Recently, Terry was interviewed on Polititeen, a podcast hosted by two politically-active high school juniors, Varoon Kodithala and Damian Galvan. In their podcast, Kodithala and Galvan regularly dive deep into the biggest socio-political issues of today, deconstructing how society has come to characterize ongoing conflicts, and discussing how social media has evolved to shape our opinions and turn this democracy.

Terry’s conversation with Kodithala and Galvan, in the episode “Lead by Example: Sparking Acceptance in America featuring Ted Terry,” covered many different issues, from the urgent need to confront climate change, to defunding the police, to furthering acceptance in our local communities.

One way that Clarkston and Terry have worked to do that is by partnering with the organization Welcoming America, a group that helps cities and towns develop policies that make their communities more welcoming and accessible to immigrants and refugees. “The great thing about these policies is that by making your town more accessible to immigrants, you make it more accessible to everyone,” he says.

“It’s about bringing people together—that’s kind of a throwaway in politics, right? It’s slogan-y. But what I mean by bringing people together is literally bringing people together. We have to go to places and build relationships with people we wouldn’t normally interact with if we stuck to our normal routines,” Terry continues.

In one of the most revealing parts of the interview, when asked about the role he played in this initiative, Terry replies that he can't take the credit, but rather, that it is the Clarkston community that deserves recognition for undertaking this important work.

As DeKalb Super 6 Commissioner, Terry intends to continue focusing on inclusion, acceptance, and diversity on multiple fronts.

One is by ensuring that all DeKalb residents can access affordable housing, which has become a greater and greater problem in the county as development has continued at a rapid pace.

The other issues Terry is focusing on are transit equity; a Green New Deal with a shift to 100 percent clean energy by 2035; criminal justice reform through instituting a civilian-led policing model and restorative justice model, as well as ending ICE cooperation, among other components; and voting rights measure including establishing Election Day as a county-wide holiday.

In light of recent protests around police brutality and the call to defund the police, Terry’s message is especially timely. “I want to see an army of social workers, not an army of militarized police,” he told Kodithala and Galvan.

Towards the end of their interview, Galvan asked Terry the following question: "If you had one thing that you could leave to the youth, one saying, one thing that they could remember you for, what would it be?" Terry's answer to this question speaks to the importance of personal connections in a world that's increasingly digitized: "If you want to change the world, it won't happen on social media. It's going to happen by getting out there in the world and making those changes."