Youth Voices Rising: Lauryn Taylor Talks Community With Aaliyah Jones

By Lauryn Taylor, BBG Youth Voices Rising

Lauryn Taylor is a high school student that attended the Norman Jordan Academy this summer. She says she is proud of her community and believes young people can become more connected to where they live by meeting the people around them.

During Youth Voices Rising, Lauryn was assigned to the community category and interviewed Aaliyah Jones, a reporter with Black By God: The West Virginian.

Aaliyah has worked for Black By God for about seven or eight months. Outside of work, she enjoys thrifting and watching movies.

Aaliyah started with BBG around the West Virginia legislative session. From January to March, she covered lawmakers and wrote articles about what they passed and didn’t pass. She also writes about community and culture.

Aaliyah was born and raised in West Virginia, but she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2022. She stayed there until 2025, when she decided to come back home because of the community she found in West Virginia.

She said one of the challenges of coming back is the job market.

Aaliyah wishes more young people knew about opportunities in journalism, camps and other ways to be creative.

For Aaliyah, belonging to West Virginia means having the opportunity to prove people wrong about the state and what they may think about the people who live here.

Her advice to young people is to find a creative outlet and something they love to do. She believes having something creative that you enjoy can help with many things in life.

The young people in West Virginia give Aaliyah hope, and she is glad they have opportunities to learn and explore their interests in school and camps like this.