Browse Topics
Nonviolence
Lesson Plan
Pranav Jani on Free Speech and College Activism
The Right and I agree on the potential of universities as a space in which students develop ideas that can transform the world. The difference is, they want to stamp it out, and I want to encourage it.
April 2026
Outpouring
Read this web-only poem about the protests in response to ICE
In the aftermath of a second killing by federal agents in Minneapolis, Alison Luterman wrote “Outpouring,” a poem about the massive protests in response to ICE’s presence in the city. It’s a reflection of the enormity of emotion that these terrible events have brought forth—outrage and fear, yes, but most of all love for our neighbors.
Stirring the Pot
Leading a strike, starting trouble between sisters, feeding strangers
January 2026
Graffiti
A tag on a dumpster, poetry in an outhouse, Viking runes in an underground tomb
October 2025
Flower People
There was a rumor the NAACP would call for a boycott of white-owned businesses. Eugene’s mother said it wasn’t clear what the objective would be, except to piss off white people and make Black people feel in control of something. “A show of Black power,” she said, holding up a fist from the living-room sofa, but she was worried more people would be killed.
November 2024
An Aspect Of Freedom
What is it about a traffic stop and a city block and a sidewalk and a country road and a Bible study and a choir room and a vestibule and a playground and a living room and a bedroom and a bed and a driveway and a highway and a stairwell and a gas station and a suburb and a driver’s seat and a parking lot and a balcony and the door to one’s own home.
January 2023
Market Street
The sea of people looked like a great heartbroken circus, wild living art, motley and stylish, old and young, lots of Buddhists, people from unions and churches and temples, punks and rabbis and aging hippies and nuns and veterans — God, I love the Democratic Party — strewn together on the asphalt lawn of Market Street.
April 2022
Fighting Back
When I was nine, / my father began / telling me how to hurt / other boys. He said to / squeeze their upper lips / until their eyes watered / or twist their ears and / hold them low so you can / walk them like a dog.
March 2021The Practice Of Touch
I imagine my own daughter in Danny’s situation. She is a toddler, so I would be allowed to stay with her if she got COVID. But if she were older, what would I do? What rules would I break to sit beside her?
December 2020
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