Articles

Use first-graders’ commitment to fairness to help them connect with the modern civil rights movement.

When Idaho Rep. Brent Crane characterized Rosa Parks as a champion of states’ rights in a recent debate, it was a troubling sign of what happens when a nation doesn’t work hard to remember its history.

A pair of news stories this week reported that students were being silenced and punished when they attempted to speak up for others. This is disappointing.

The confluence of President Obama’s second inauguration and MLK Day is a fitting legacy and inspiration to continue making changes.

Protest Songs in the Classroom

Based on the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools, modern-day programs educate and empower students.

Picture books can help 5-year-olds explore social justice topics and nonviolence. The resulting discussion is the start of a peace curriculum.

I am in awe of young people. Today, for example, I read about a group of teens in Louisville, Ky. who continued to speak on LGBT issues. High school students from duPont Manual High School were censored for writing about gay issues, but they refused to let their voices be silenced. They decided to run an underground paper, The Red Pen, and won the annual Courage in Student Journalism Award.

Let’s talk about voting. Yesterday, we asked our 65,000 Facebook followers if they had held mock elections in their schools. We heard from one lone voice that reported her middle school had 100 percent turnout.

As a child I asked my father whether there was someone like Martin Luther King Jr. who had fought for Latino rights. “Yes,” he said, and told me that his name was César Chávez. My father, a former farmworker who had toiled in the agricultural fields from childhood until adulthood, taught me about César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and the farmworker struggle.