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Emily Hayman draws her drive for activism from her grandmother.

When Hayman saw an image of her grandmother, Aggie Lane, in a newspaper showing Lane being arrested for protesting, it inspired her to fight for justice in her community.

“Now I look back on that moment and realize how brave she was in that moment, and she’s so admirable,” said Hayman, who is now 17. “She knew what she was doing was right and stood her ground.”

Lane, 75, lives on the Southside of Syracuse and is the treasurer and co-founder of the Urban Jobs Task Force, an organization that seeks to help low-income individuals find work and achieve financial stability. Many of Lane’s friends, family and colleagues said that, despite her age, she is still energetic and not afraid to fight for what she believes in.

“She’s north of 70 and has the energy of someone south of 50, possibly more,” said Reggie Seigler, a member of the Urban Jobs Task Force. “She’s absolutely the same no matter where you see her. She’s Aggie.”

Lane attended college at SUNY-Stony Brook, where she received a degree in history. After graduating, she entered the Peace Corps and later earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Missouri.

But Lane said her education continued well beyond college. In the 1980s, she joined the Sanctuary Movement, a campaign that aimed to provide refuge in the United States for Central Americans fleeing conflict in their home countries. Lane said this movement sparked her interest in community activism and social justice.

“(College) was the end of my education at one level, but I had an education in another way,” she said. “You can learn so much from reading and books. You can read and read and read, but I think it also makes sense to experience.”

Following her work with the Sanctuary Movement, Lane joined the Partnership for Onondaga Creek, a group that opposed the construction of a sewage plant on Midland Avenue. The city’s plan to build the plant would result in the eviction of low-income, primarily Black residents who were living on the site, according to the organization’s website.

While working for the partnership, Lane realized the importance of amplifying the voices of the people most directly affected by the plant’s construction, she said.

“I had to learn to not assume (I had) to be the spokesperson for a Black community,” Lane said. “My own life experience was nothing like the one many of the people who were struggling against the placement of that sewage plant in that community had experienced.”

Lane co-founded the Urban Jobs Task Force in 2011. Through the group, Lane supports policies and initiatives to expand easily accessible employment opportunities in Syracuse.

Lane is the driving force behind the organization, Seigler said.

“She’s up early in the morning. She’s up late at night,” Seigler said. “She doesn’t do this for monetary gain. She just does it because she has a passion for it. She sees a wrong and she wants to make it right.”

While many people respect Lane for her research and knowledge, she doesn’t let that respect change how she acts around others, Seigler said. Even when she is working with influential state and federal lawmakers, she is always looking for ways to include everyone in the discussion, he said.

Deka Dancil, the president of the Urban Jobs Task Force and the manager of bias response at Syracuse University, said Lane’s approach to activism is “subtle yet effective.”

“When people are in the room with Aggie, they know that they better know what they are talking about because she does,” Dancil said. “They also know never to tell her what can’t be done to achieve equity, because she’ll rebut with how it can.”

Lane served as the president of the Urban Jobs Task Force when it was founded. She later stepped down after meeting Dancil at a seminar at SU on poverty in the city.

Dancil, who had graduated from SU nearly two years before, said she still couldn’t secure a full-time job at the time. Following the seminar, Lane immediately convinced Dancil to join the organization.

Dancil said Lane has since become a mentor to her.

“Although she is one of our founders, she doesn’t feel that she should be the leader of an (organization) fighting for justice for mostly Black and brown lives not being one herself,” Dancil said. “That’s true allyship and service and I respect it to the fullest.”

Many of Lane’s colleagues and family members said she is also kind, charismatic and has a desire to transfer her knowledge to those around her.

Hope Hayman, Lane’s daughter-in-law and Emily Hayman’s mother, said Lane always encourages people to find their own ways of fighting for what they believe in.

“She’s so happy for people to realize that they can make a difference and they want to make a difference,” Hope said. “She’s so happy and proud of people when they start finding their own way to participate in the world.”

Lane attended several protests against racial injustice and police brutality in Syracuse this summer following a Minneapolis police officer’s killing of George Floyd. She was heartened to see the young activists leading the protests.

“From my perspective as a 75-year-old, anyone in their 20s and 30s leading this movement was young, and it really felt like the next generation realized what needed to be done,” Lane said. “It was really heartening.”

Lane said she encourages young activists like her granddaughter to continue to speak out and find a way to make a difference. Working with others towards a common goal puts pressure on the political system and will bring much-needed change to the country, Lane said.

“It’s more than just going to one protest,” Lane said. “Change doesn’t happen quickly. It takes years and years and years of constant pressure. Of not going away. Of being persistent. That eventually starts moving that needle hopefully towards a more just system.”

Published on October 19, 2020 at 11:52 pm

Contact Maggie: mehicks@syr.edu | @maggie_hickss