Category Courage & Bravery

I was eight years old when I first understood what it meant to be different. It was a Tuesday morning, crisp and cool like most in Butte, Montana. The frost still clung to the windows when I walked to school, my breath curling in clouds around my scarf. I liked ...

I was 14 when I saw George Floyd die on my phone screen. 15 when I marched downtown. 16 when I got tear-gassed for holding a sign that read “Am I next?” Justice isn’t theoretical for my generation. It’s urgent. It’s now. They told us we were too young to ...

My father kept his boots by the door until the day he died. They were scuffed, sun-bleached, and one of the soles had separated near the toe, but he never threw them out. Said they reminded him of who he’d once been—and what he survived. He didn’t talk much about ...

I was eleven when my father got arrested for sitting at a lunch counter. Not shouting. Not throwing anything. Just sitting. It was a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. He wasn’t part of the original four, but he joined the sit-ins after work one day wearing his factory uniform, tired ...