La Hora de Actuar (The Time to Act)

In the midst of a global pandemic and social reckoning, a contentious national election culminated in a Black woman assuming the office of Vice President for the first time in the country’s history. Her name is Francia Márquez, and she is the human and environmental rights activist who went from teenage mother working as a housekeeper to second in command of Colombia’s executive branch.

Nichidatsu Fujii: A Buddhist Pacifist?

Nichidatsu Fujii (1885-1985) was a Japanese Buddhist monk and peace activist who founded the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myōhōji in 1918. Nipponzan Myōhōji is a small lay and monastic order of about 1500 people that continues to be active to the present day, and scholars consider it to be one among Japan’s many new religious movements, albeit much smaller in terms of its size and scale than other groups in this category.

Toyohiko Kagawa: Gandhi of Japan?

Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960) was a Japanese social reformer, labor activist and Christian evangelist known as “Japan’s Gandhi.” As a social activist, pacifist and public figure, Kagawa was well-known during his lifetime – both in his home country of Japan as well as in the United States. He was nominated for the Nobel Prizes in literature and peace on numerous occasions.

Ready, Willing, and Able to Fight – How Judy Heumann Advanced the Disability Rights Movement

For the last three decades, millions of American parents have been able to park their minivans between parallel white lines – avoiding the spaces with the blue and white logos that depict a stick figure in a wheelchair – and usher their child into a stroller, which they can push up a portion of the curb gradually sloped from the asphalt up to the sidewalk, before guiding the stroller up a concrete ramp and through an entrance wide enough to fit it. 

Verses of Change – An Afro-Caribbean Poet’s Quest for Independence

Language is one of the most powerful tools for resistance.  Some dismiss language alone as incapable of effecting change.  However, history reveals that the ability to understand and communicate a language in a way that connects, empowers, and galvanizes the disenfranchised can itself be revolutionary