Exploring and Celebrating Diversity

In this poem, the speaker explores how our culture would be lacking—in people, in music, in movements, in contributions—without contributions of African Americans.

In this poem, a black woman carefully analyzes her interaction with a white waitress, whose actions, although civil, are smoldering with superiority.

This excerpt explains that families are defined by love, caring and sharing, not the number or gender of its members.

This excerpt focuses on the lives of African American students during Freedom Summer. After reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in class in 1963, students in main character C.J.'s school are asked to share their dreams at an assembly.

This poem, told by a third-person omniscient narrator, paints a picture of José, an immigrant student who carries the burden of being from the “borderlands.”

Felipe Morales' telling account of an encounter with a blind woman on the streets of Washington, D.C. was recorded for This I Believe. The NPR project features brief personal essays in which people from diverse backgrounds discuss how their values affect their daily lives.

On April 14, 1947, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the lower court decision in Mendez v. Westminster, which required the school to integrate and set the stage for Brown v. Board of Education.

“In response to legislation that would have criminalized immigrants, thousands of high school students from across the country walked out of their classrooms and into history.”