Betty leaves behind a powerful legacy for all of us and certainly within the National Park Service. Her thoughtful, introspective musings about the Civil Rights movement and the women's movement and how they intersected are some of the unique moments that I will always treasure...Thanks to Betty we've learned that we can hold multiple conflicting truths at the same time.
She remembers walking with her big brothers down a sidewalk fractured by the roots of old oak trees while children played hopscotch on the playground. She remembers going outside and clapping erasers together so that plumes of chalk dust rose above her head. And she remembers being told that she was attending a school that many white parents had taken their children out of just a few years earlier because they didn't want them sitting in class with Negroes.
Following presidential custom, Trump issued a National Black History Month proclamation on Feb. 3 that maintained "black history is not distinct from American history - rather, the history of Black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American story." Yes, but: Its rhetoric, critics say, stands in tension with the Trump administration's recent actions, raising questions about whether commemoration without context ultimately obscures more than it honors.
When the world feels chaotic-when grief, uncertainty, or heaviness settles into your body-gratitude can feel distant. Yet these are often the very moments when giving thanks becomes a steadying force. Naming what we're grateful for can't erase hardship, but it can anchor us. It reminds us what is good and what is possible, even in the hardest seasons. Gratitude, from the Latin gratus-thankful, pleasing-is a multidimensional experience.
Soskin was pivotal in the creation of the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond that opened in the year 2000, and her namesake remains on the Betty Reid Soskin Middle School in El Sobrante. But the Bay Area lost its famed park ranger over the weekend, as the Chronicle reports that Betty Reid Soskin died on Sunday at her home in Richmond. She was 104.
The New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture memorialized its centennial this year, a testament to the temple of Black history that houses over 11 million items throughout its storied reading rooms.
Willa Robinson's passion for reading began in childhood, inspired by her father. She has collected Black literature since the late 1970s, seeing it as a way to fill personal loss.
Growing up, I spent my summers devouring Children of the Sun and Great Kings and Queens of Africa. While my classmates were learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I was curled up with books that introduced me to Mansa Musa, Queen Nzinga, and Kwame Nkrumah. Back then, it sometimes seemed I was just doing double the homework, but now I know my parents were planting in me imagination, belief in myself, racial pride, and truly resilient roots.
Quilts from the small community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, have gained recognition for imaginative designs using recycled materials. The summer show in Columbia County showcases the bold and expressive designs crafted by the next generation of quilting artists from Gee's Bend.
"I want visitors to have a truly multi-sensory experience," said Key Jo Lee, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD). "To take in what it means to be in this space, to hear the wind, to touch the coldness of the stone... you are actually echoing history and making a new history in this place."
This was an act of hate, but it will not define us. This mural was born from a community's pride, history, and power. We will restore it-stronger, bolder, and with even more purpose.
Nate Holdenâs political journey was marked by a fierce determination, rising from challenging beginnings in Georgia to become a significant political figure in Los Angeles.
Crenshaw emphasized, 'The attacks on ideas germinating from racial justice were not about the specific targets of each attack but are efforts to impose a specific narrative about the United States that marginalizes its difficult chapters.'
Understanding who my ancestors were, understanding that we were people who were denied the ability to read and write, it makes this fight even more important as I move forward in it.
