Racial & Immigrant Rights

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

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.”

“By the time I was in the second grade, everyone was calling me Raymond.”

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.”

In this excerpt from his book, Walking with the Wind, John Lewis describes his involvement in the sit-ins in Nashville, Tenn., in the spring of 1960.

To cover is to downplay aspects of our identity that make us different from mainstream society. Kenji Yoshino argues that, although we live in an age where the law prohibits many forms of discrimination, people still face pressure to hide who they are.

This essay details James Reeb’s calling to become a minister and—eventually—to join the march in Selma. Although he was tragically murdered following the march, his death had a profound impact on the civil rights movement.

Margaret Batchelder writes to President Theodore Roosevelt to tell him how women inspectors welcome immigrants—with smiles and encouragement. Although not allowed to question the immigrants, the women make a difference in the immigrants' first experiences on shore.

Elizabeth MacQueen is the sculptor of Four Spirits, a monument built to memorialize the four girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. In her memoir, she discusses how the project revealed to her how sheltered she had been as a child growing up in Birmingham.

This story follows a girl who befriends the first African American to attend High Point Central High School, as a result of desegregation. What begins as an unintended and awkward experience in the cafeteria, becomes a strong and admirable friendship.

In this spoken word piece, Elizabeth Acevedo speaks of her Afro-Latina heritage, recounting how she first rejected her roots and then learned to embrace them.

In this poem, the speaker recounts his or her shifting view of the white man stoically standing between Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony in Mexico City for the 1968 Olympics.

Bayard Rustin believed deeply in the power of nonviolence during the era of segregation. In the following essay, he describes its use and effect on a bus ride from Louisville to Nashville.

This essay places side by side the historical oppression of African Americans in the South and the recent surge of African Americans moving back to the South of their own free will. In her discussion, Maya Angelou questions why such choices are considered remarkable.

Rahaf is a Syrian immigrant who compares her life in Syria to her new life in the U.S.

Freddy Ochoa interviews his aunt about her experience as a first-generation immigrant to America from a Mexican family.

In this spoken word piece, Elizabeth Acevedo addresses the beauty standard that is epitomized by fair skin and straight hair.

This essay details Jimmie Lee Jackson’s involvement in the voting rights movement and his violent death at the hands of Alabama state troopers.

President Clinton delivered this speech at Little Rock's Central High School during a 40th-anniversary ceremony, in which he recognized the strength, conviction,and sacrifice shown by the Little Rock Nine and their parents.

Obama's 2015 speech on the Edmund Pettus Bridge honors the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when hundreds of voting-rights activists were brutally attacked by state troopers as they began a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. President Obama reminds us of the spirit and struggle associated with the marchers in Selma, or any group of people meeting injustice.

The Immigration Act of 1965 abolished the "country-of-origin" immigration quota system and established a system of entry based on skills and family relationships with U.S. residents. In addition to his remarks about these changes, President Johnson announced asylum for Cuban refugees.

In the graphic novel March, Congressman John Lewis documents his experiences as a young civil rights activist. Hear him describe his first arrest employing a nonviolent resistance strategy, as captured in the book.

In this essay, Lecia J. Brooks reacts to the rioting in Baltimore by reflecting on her experiences following the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

Bayard Rustin was an African American leader who worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) in the 1940s and 1950s for equal rights for all Americans using nonviolence. In this story, he writes about the struggle for an African American man to order a simple hamburger at a restaurant in the Midwest.