A Lifeline for Democracy
In her 2005 commencement speech at the University of Vermont, Ruth Simmons describes experiences that helped her escape the poverty and discrimination of her youth to become the president of Brown University.
![Book cover of American flag with faces over it.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Reconstruction_cover_large.jpg?h=51bee232&itok=yY8xN3AK)
Louisiana White League Platform (1874)
The White League was a paramilitary group responsible for widespread violence against black and white Republicans in Louisiana and Mississippi. The group’s platform from 1874 is articulated here.
![Book cover of American flag with faces over it.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Reconstruction_cover_large.jpg?h=51bee232&itok=yY8xN3AK)
Telling Fact From Fiction on Social Media
Journalists and media professionals discuss the benefits and challenges of using social media to report and understand any fast-moving story.
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The Danger of a Single Story
In her TED Talk, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes the effects that labels can have on how we think about ourselves and others.
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The Origins of Lynching Culture in the United States
Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, discusses the history and origins of lynching.
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The Role and Challenges of a Free Press
Reporters and media professionals discuss the functions and importance of a free press in a democracy.
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The Sterilization of Leilani Muir
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This documentary traces the life of Leilani Muir, the first person to file a lawsuit against the Alberta government for wrongful sterilization, and provides background on the history of eugenics in the early 1900s.
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The Wooden Shoes
Cassania, a high school student in Boston who emigrated from Haiti, tells the story of a pair of wooden shoes her grandfather gave to her as a gift.
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Excerpt from Crusade for Justice
This excerpt from Ida B. Wells’s autobiography gives us insight into Wells’s decision to take a stand and speak out against racial lynchings.
![Ida B. Wells Barnett, in a photograph by Mary Garrity from c. 1893. This version has been cropped from the original photographic card](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-03/Mary_Garrity_-_Ida_B_Wells-Barnett_-_Google_Art_Project_-_restoration_crop.jpg?h=e25beccd&itok=J3tHLAx4)
Excerpt from "Crusade for Justice" (en español)
This excerpt from Ida B. Wells’s autobiography gives us insight into Wells’s decision to take a stand and speak out against racial lynchings. This resource is in Spanish.
![Ida B. Wells Barnett, in a photograph by Mary Garrity from c. 1893. This version has been cropped from the original photographic card](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-03/Mary_Garrity_-_Ida_B_Wells-Barnett_-_Google_Art_Project_-_restoration_crop.jpg?h=e25beccd&itok=J3tHLAx4)
Warsan Shire's Poetry About Home
British-Somali poet Warsan Shire gives voice to the experiences of refugees in a poem about "home."
![Syrian refugees cross from Syria to Turkey via the Orontes River, near the village of Hacipasa, Turkey, Dec. 8, 2012. This image was one in a series of 20 by AP photographers that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/2013_SyrianRefugeesontheOrontesRiver_FH248167.jpg?h=c9f93661&itok=Gx3XIq0Q)