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A portion of the production’s cast. To read more of Levi Rickert's article, please click here. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater was sold out on Friday, July 1st for the We The Peoples Before stage production that drew a crowd of Native Americans from various parts of Indian Country as well as other attendees who sat for the two-hour long performance. The First Peoples Fund, an organization that supports the collective spirit of Native Americans artists, hosted the...

By Alonzo l. Plough, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, June 8, 2022 Engaging in honest dialogue about race sometimes means lowering our defenses and acknowledging our feelings so we can walk together toward racial equity. The opening of the Tops Friendly Market in East Buffalo was a triumph of community activism , a victory for residents who struggled for years against food apartheid . In a neighborhood that had long lacked a full-service supermarket, the store became a symbol of local...

Are you interested in learning about new research that integrates the latest brain and social science? Then please join CTIPP’s next Community Action Network (CAN) call on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, from 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PT: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/ 742183645 Meeting ID: 742 183 645 +19292056099,,742183645# US (New York) Q&A session after presentations REGISTER / ADD TO CALENDAR The conversation will explore the integrated science of positive and adverse...

Every year during Women’s History Month we reflect on the many accomplishments of women and their contributions to society. Now that the month is over, it’s time to face a glaring omission so that it’s not repeated next March. This year, I was particularly concerned that the month’s overfocus on the secular and professional accomplishments of women brought an unintended consequence to undermine mothering as valuable work equally worthy of high-fives, GIFs, reposting, and tweeting. Women’s...

Earlier this month, a small group of roughly 50 people gathered in San Juan, Puerto Rico to discuss what a liberatory movement for community economic development might look like. For many, it was their first in-person conference since the COVID-19 pandemic. The convener? CEO Circle, an informal network of leaders of color of national community development organizations. Founding members of the loose network are Akilah Watkins-Butler of the Center for Community Progress , Tony Pickett of...

They toiled through back-breaking labor during both frigid winters and blazing summers. Hundreds died from explosions, landslides, accidents and disease. And even though they made major contributions to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, these 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese immigrants have been largely ignored by history. Hilton Obenzinger, associate director of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University, says that Central Pacific Railroad director...

In the last two years, this five-cylinder engine has propelled funders to break through historic barriers to change. Global crises of the past two years have yielded at least one silver lining for nonprofits: They have accelerated a movement among grantmakers to match the duration and flexibility of their funding to the arc and demands of change. Such a shift couldn’t come at a more important time for organizations addressing acute threats to climate, health, our social fabric, and world...

For children and families, last year’s expansion of the Child Tax Credit provided crucial support, helping them afford basic needs like food, clothing, and housing. Yet this historic policy achievement that almost immediately reduced child poverty was fleeting. Just six months after the first payment went out, the opportunity to help children thrive abruptly ended. The expanded policy was never extended, and these families are now right back where they started. Research shows that long term,...

The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) reflects on progress made in the recently-passed Fiscal Year 2022 budget and the fight ahead in FY23. Congress passes appropriations legislation annually to fund the federal government, including federal agencies and their programs for businesses and local governments. Each year, funding levels are subject to change: while new programs begin and others grow, some shrink or are cut altogether. CTIPP is working toward a society that...

In her new book, An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World , Patrisse Cullors starts with courageous conversations. She says, “We have courageous conversations because our goal is to live inside of a healthy community that values the dignity of every single human being.” These conversations typically arise out of our lived experiences. They are conversations we have because we care. They are conversations that first start with us. Through Cullors’ own story, she...

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, a wave of fear ran through the country that led America to violate the civil liberties of tens of thousands of its own citizens. In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese ancestry in ten camps throughout the country. Two-thirds of those interned were U.S. citizens. The smallest of the camps, Amache in southeast Colorado, housed...

We live in a time when climate disasters, political violence, religious and social persecution, and imperialist wars worsen the international refugee crisis, and children are some of the most vulnerable in the tragedies of forced migration. UNICEF reports that “Children make up less than one third of the global population, but almost half among the world’s refugees in 2020. … The refugee population is much younger than the overall migrant population.” It recorded that almost 1 in 3 children...