Lived Experience Interview:
Marcus Queen — Community Advocate, Youth Worker, Trailblazing Award Winner

In this interview, conducted at the 2025 URBAN National Conference, Marcus Queen reflects on his community advocacy work and how collaboration is at the center of his sports coaching, community action, and engagement in various local initiatives, such as being a board member and Tree Ambassador. Marcus advises community workers to be friendly, well-informed, and persistent, despite challenges and stresses the need for younger energy in community work.

JCEC:
Can you tell me a bit about yourself, the work that you do, and how you ended up being connected to the URBAN Research Network?

Marcus:
Well, name is Marcus Queen. I work with community. I’ve been a community advocate, or I’ve been associated with community involvement, all my life. I did things like coach sports in my hometown. I’ve been a part of Head Start, and I’ve been a board member for Community Action in my early years. It’s something I found that I was good at, so I stuck with it and I guess I was blessed to work with people and do community involvement, so that’s what I do. And it’s not just one phase. Whatever interests me, that’s what I do — things that are following my heart. You know, some things just hit you right up here and you say, “Okay, I can do that.” So, like, whatever is or was appealing to me, that’s what I try to do.

JCEC:
How do you tend to think about collaboration and what kinds of collaborative relationships or practices are you or your organization engaged in?

Well, I think collaboration involves more than one person. If you’re trying to collaborate with someone, they have to be willing to talk to you and they have to be willing to be friendly — just like I have to do the same thing.

I collaborate when it comes to sports. I collaborate with the parents, because I want them to know that their child is in a safe environment and that I’m qualified to be instructing their kids, no matter what field it is, whether sports, reading, art or whatever. So, collaboration is important, and I work at it pretty hard. I’ve been doing it so long now, it’s kind of easy sometimes, but according to the individual situation.

Collaboration is important in my town, I’ve been moving around doing different jobs, so people are tending to see me everywhere. I’m in the community working with the Senior Center. I’m in the community doing poetry. I’m in the community teaching sports. I’m part of a group that has a garden. So that’s community again. I just try to keep busy.

I live in a town that’s 90% Hispanic, okay, and 5% and 5% Black and white and whatever else is mixed in. So, I really didn’t like it at first, because I felt like I didn’t know anybody. But once I got in…once I got into the town and lived there for a year or two, I started to know more people. Sometimes people would let me know about jobs like this one. A friend of mine that I work with just told me one day, “I got a job for you.” I went to an interview, and they hired me. But that’s one of three jobs. The other job is that I’m a tree ambassador. The organization was tabling, and I went up to them, and the job that I saw was “tree ambassador.” I didn’t know what it was, but you go door to door to try to get the community to plant free trees. Oh, very nice, yeah. They don’t have to do anything but say, “Yes, okay,” and then you give them more information. Somebody will then come by and tell them, you know, what trees are good for their yard and things like that. All they have to do is just water it, you know? We would follow up with them months later.

When it comes to collaboration, people see what you’re doing in the community and sometimes they just want to see you keep going, so they let you know about different things. Opportunities. All my life, opportunities have come to me, and sometimes I didn’t even do anything but just be there, yeah, and people have helped me so much. They see what I do in the community, so it makes me feel good. So that kind of collaboration is good. If you can get somebody to recognize that you’re doing good, I think that’s a good thing. Sometimes people don’t get recognized and people work hard, and sometimes people over us don’t recognize that we’re doing good things and great work in the community. But I just keep going. You know, I just keep going. That’s how I ended up at the conference. They said we’re having a conference in Rhode Island. Immediately, I wanted to go. It’s educational!

JCEC:
Based on your experience, what would you say are some collaboration-best-practices that you would suggest others use in their collaborative relationships — particularly in this current context of great social upheaval and uncertainty?

Marcus:
I think one thing for anybody that’s working with the public is: you have to be friendly first. And I would tell them to make sure that they’re always friendly to whoever, even if they’re not [friendly back]. And that’s something I went through coaching sports and working with kids and working with seniors. Sometimes it’s just not your day and people have attitudes…just like I have them. Sometimes I try not to expose it to others. So, I would just say be friendly. Be the person that you are that got you here to where you are.

I went to the State House last week and a young man — it was just a few young men in there and they’re in the community work – and I was kind of surprised, because I’ve been doing it forever, and I just think it was a good thing that these young guys are taking things in their hands and doing things that maybe some other young people wouldn’t do. So, you know, I would tell them, “It’s a blessing when people like you…when you come into an environment and people see you talk and they like you (that’s a plus) and that you know just what you’re talking about.” Yeah. Be well informed as far as what you’re doing so that you can present yourself. That’s important too. They say first appearances are real important when you’re out, when you meet people. So, those are the things I would tell them. Those are the things that have gotten me to be, you know, where I’m at.

JCEC:
Is there anything you would like to add?

Marcus:
I just think that when individuals like me have been doing this for a long time, sometimes we need a break and sometimes we need somebody new. Sometimes we need somebody younger to have a little more energy than we might have on any given day. I think that’s important. And I just feel like, if you like what you’re doing, that’s it! I mean, I can’t squawk about anything I’m doing in life now, whether it’s community, working with the kids, and working teaching them sports. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I guess that’s why I’m scared I’ll probably be going to the end and never retire. You know, we gotta use what God gives us and we gotta help each other. We gotta help others. You know, we gotta be able to see when somebody’s having a hard time and be ready to help. I think that’s the important part, too, for anybody that’s working with people, is to — even when you’re down, when you’re tired, when you don’t feel good, when you’re having problems at home or with family — we still gotta go on. That’s right, yeah, that’s right. Some days are not easy, but they say we got to suck it up and that’s the thing I would want people to know, because it can be tiresome working with people, but I love it. Yeah, I just got an award for trailblazing in my town, like on the 27th of April, so I had to speak at that function. And I’ve had a few other awards. So, you know, some people shy away from stuff like this, but if somebody says, “You want to do this?” Yes, I step in.