Elijah King wanted to make one thing very, very clear: he knows Durham. Possibly better than anyone else, he said.

It’s a big claim from the 23-year-old Durham native, who is running for the Ward 1 Durham City Council position, but one that he could probably back up. King moved homes around the city 11 times before he turned just 18, spending much of it in the city’s North Side, where he is running to represent.

Throughout this turbulence, King had an escape: downtown Durham and all of its small businesses. After class at Riverside High School, he would hop on the bus and explore all that the city center had to offer. To this day, King still gets his haircut at the same barbershop on Tobacco Campus. And visits Pincho Loco for ice cream nearly everyday.

He is even a server at the downtown Elmo’s Diner, somewhere he has been coming since a kid — and, where he cemented his decision to run for city council. Table 22, to be exact.

This close involvement with the city taught King about the spirit of Durham, which motivated him, he said, to begin his work driving change in the community from a young age.

“I’ve never paid attention to the whole age thing,” King said. “There were things in the community that needed to get done, and I wanted to do it.”

As King’s senior year of high school winded down during the Covid-19 pandemic, he kept his schedule packed. He co-founded the Durham Youth Climate Justice Initiative, holding protests in downtown Durham. The organization aims to get young people involved in conversations surrounding the disproportionate environmental effects on Black and brown communities.

He has served on the board of Made in Durham, working to provide young people with education-to-career pathways, the NC AIDS Action Network, and the NC Democratic Party, for which he serves as the third-vice chair — the youngest on the board for the latter two.

He also co-founded the Durham Neighbors Free Lunch Initiative, partnering with over two dozen small businesses and farmers to serve about 60,000 meals to those in need in the city. The non-profit ended operations in 2023 due to lack of funds.

Small business support is one of the key frameworks of King’s campaign —it’s been part of his story from the very beginning,

Because of this, King is adamant to help protect small businesses and let them thrive. At the start of his campaign, he reached out to over 100 small businesses in Durham as part of his ‘small business tour,’ to hear the perspectives of owners, managers and employees. He learned that many businesses feel there is an accessibility issue when it comes to contact with City Council and having their voices heard.

King wants Durham to follow the footsteps of other cities across the country by forming a city council commission to boost the interests of small businesses. Not only would this give small business owners a direct line to the city council, but a seat at the table in decision making.

The vision to center community voices is not just relevant for the issue of small businesses, but also for the hot topic of this year’s election: development. While King is not explicitly clear about his stance on development in Durham – though it is a question that requires a bit more nuance than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ – he is clear about this: the people helped him get to where he is, so it is his responsibility to listen to them about key issues, especially regarding development.

“My approach is just making sure we are centering the community voice in every step of the way,”  King said. “Not just at the end, like we saw with Sterling Bay, but making sure that we are starting with that, so there’s time.”

Just like King wanted to do with the Climate Justice Initiative, his involvement in public office at such a young age has the potential to enter a whole new generation into the conversations surrounding community progress.

“Once you are exposed to it at an early age, you tend to get involved, and start to understand how you can change your community, how you can make people’s lives better,” Shelia Huggins, former City of Durham employee and current Democratic National Committee member, said. “And as a young person, when you get exposed, I think it helps you understand some of the real world issues that you may not think about.”

However, one of the running points of King’s campaign is that he has first-hand experience with the talking-point issues of the election. If elected, King would be one of the only Durham natives on the council, as well as one of the only renters. He knows the feeling of counting tips at the end of the night, hoping to have enough to pay rent.

Jenny Jones Coldren, King’s campaign manager and former fifth-grade teacher, said that he is the living example of the other candidates’ platform points.

“We were filling out a questionnaire the other day, where one of the questions was, ‘Are you willing to go a week without using cars?’ And it’s like, that’s Elijah every day,” Coldren said. “He doesn’t have to do it for a week so that he understands the feeling — he understands the feeling. So to me, let’s stop saying we’re helping people and actually give them a seat at the table.”

King said that he credits opportunity for letting him make such big strides so young. He hopes to provide the same opportunities for a new generation to drive change in their community, just like it did for him.

“I hope this opens up doors for them to say, ‘That kid, at 23-years-old, with minimal money, minimal resources, was able to do it — and so can I,’” King said.