Best Community Activist: Ben Frazier

Best Community Activist: Ben Frazier

Veteran journalist, news anchor,  producer, narrator, motivational speaker and life-long activist, Ben Frazier can do it all — and if he hasn’t, he will. Frazier loves the city that he calls home and refuses to be silenced. Having founded the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville in 2015 to address social, racial and economic injustice, Frazier believes all voices should be heard and has made it his mission that they are. 

Frazier feels strongly about voting equity, homelessness, adult and youth literacy, and ending gun violence. He wishes to keep his community informed and educated on the racial injustices seen not only in Jacksonville but across the globe and recently spoke in Geneva, Switzerland at the U.N. Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination to discuss the “anti-riot bill” passed in Florida after the death of George Floyd. 

On Dec. 13, 2022, Frazier made a public statement at a City Council meeting where he plead for city leaders to tear down the confederate monuments that still stand. After he violated a newly-changed rule by speaking 65 longer than the allowed time limit, he was taken into custody by police. The arrest did not phase Frazier, of course. He only used it to fuel the fire that burns in him for social and racial reform. He is a force to be reckoned with. –Carmen Macri