For generations, Indigenous communities in the United States have protested Columbus Day—a centuries-old observance in the United States—and for decades have led a movement to rename the second Monday in October from “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous Peoples Day.” Today, more than a dozen states have formally embraced Indigenous Peoples Day as part of a process to recenter Indigenous communities and end the glorification of settler colonialism. Precisely within this context, educator and author...

By Shania Degroot, New York Amsterdam News, July 8, 2021 Consolee Nishimwe, 41, lives in New York City and devotes much of her time to advocating for women’s rights as well as helping the people who have survived genocide-related trauma. Nishimwe, a Rwandan genocide survivor, recalls much of her current work being influenced by the trauma she experienced during her childhood in Rwanda. Consolee grew up in Rwanda, where both of her parents worked as teachers. Prior to 1994, she was raised...

What should every American know? This question has long been debated, discussed, and deliberated. And while answers need to come from all of us—not just a powerful few—young people have often been excluded from these conversations. A partnership between Chicago Public Schools and the Aspen Institute’s program on Citizenship and American Identity aims to change that. Together they seek to elevate youth perspectives, beliefs, and values as vital to our national conversation of civic purpose.

Anneliese M. Bruner was in her mid-30s when her father presented her with a small red book. It was bound in cloth and worn at the corners. “This is a book your grandmother wrote,” he told her, “and I want you to see what you can do with it. You are the matriarch of the family now, and I’m giving this to you.” Opening it, she saw a panoramic photograph that revealed the utter destruction of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Okla. , in the immediate aftermath of a white mob descending on the...