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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 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.

Regarded as one of the most important speeches in American history, it was delivered by Booker T. Washington as a plea for racial cooperation in the South during a time of deep racial prejudice.

In 1916, one family battled against the unjust laws aimed at immigrants of Japanese ancestry. In doing so, they lent their own voices to the growing chorus of Asian Americans insisting: "We belong here."

This poem was written as a tribute on the 20th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death, connecting him to the painful history of anti-LGBTQ violence.