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The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a non-profit organization known for its lineage-based membership. Members of the DAR must be able to trace their genealogy back to an individual connected to American Independence. In this letter, Eleanor Roosevelt responds to the DAR’s refusal in February 1939 to allow the black performer Marian Anderson to sing at their auditorium, Constitution Hall.

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

The freedom riders, black and white, joined together to effect change. Traveling across the South while enduring ridicule and pain, they helped ensure that doors were open to all people, regardless of skin color.

When dreams and opportunities are pushed out of reach, only so many avenues offer recourse.

In this vignette, eight-year-old Mikey spends two nights in a homeless shelter, where he and his family are too afraid to sleep for fear that someone would steal their things. The family then meets a caseworker who helps them into a temporary apartment while they work toward a more permanent home.

Through an extended metaphor, Maya Angelou—who has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States—uses a caged bird and a free bird to juxtapose the oppressed and the free.

Every night Bailey dreams about dresses, but each day his mother, father, and brother remind him that he is a boy and dresses aren't for him. Finally, he finds a friend who embraces both his love for dresses and the individual he feels he is inside.

Laura Linn's article explores how Rosa Marcellino, a nine-year old with Down syndrome, and her family worked to eliminate the phrase "mentally retarded" from official use. "Rosa's Law" is living, legislative proof that their hard work paid off.

By the time the first few Mormon families moved back into Jackson County in 1867, old hostilities no longer threatened their freedom or safety. Nonetheless, Gov. Boggs' Extermination Order remained on the books more than a century, until a subsequent governor made this proclamation in 1976.

Klan groups frequently leave pamphlets on doorsteps and parked cars to spread their message of hate. A group calling itself the Bristol Knights distributed a flier in white Connecticut neighborhoods in the 1980s.