RALEIGH, N.C. – Barbara Smalley-McMahan is a community activist in Raleigh.

“I’m doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes,” Smalley-McMahan said. “Not necessarily all the time out in the protesting. But the work I’ve been doing is what we all need to be doing.”

While she's been involved in the recent Black Lives Matter protests, voting rights is what initially sparked her fire to get involved. Smalley-McMahan is an ordained American Baptist minister, but in 2013 she spoke out to state legislators against the voter ID law.

“I wound up quitting my job,” Smalley-McMahan said. “I got very involved in the Moral Monday movement. I got arrested with that movement three times.”

She's encouraged by the mix of people currently getting involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, but she hopes it continues even after the protests stop. And she hopes that white people take action.

“We cannot be deaf, dumb, and blind any longer,” Smalley-McMahan said. “Our neighbors are hurting and we’re benefiting from it. Even if it’s not made obvious. Because if it was obvious, most of us are good-hearted people and would never put up with it. But this was all built into the laws that sustain systemic racism.”

Her friend and fellow activist, Wanda Gilbert-Coker is involved in several groups, including Raleigh PACT, which stands for police accountability community task force.

She says it's important for people to understand that the advocates are on the ground and need your help.

“To understand that Black Lives Matter and these other organizations started out with moms, just ordinary people who wanted to change and have effective change,” Gilbert-Coker said. “And that’s exactly who we are in Raleigh. We’re just ordinary people, but we’re impacted and we want to see change.”

To help promote change, look at the issues that matter to you.

“Pick what you care about,” Smalley-McMahan said. “It’s all related, housing, education, policing, healthcare, it’s all related. And there are grassroots groups out there in the black community, in all minority groups working to get structural racism dismantled.

To find an organization near you, click here.