One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement.

— Pauli Murray

The "tough male union leader" is mostly myth. Some of America's most effective labor organizing was done by teenage girls working in textile mills. They built the foundation for modern labor rights while adults dismissed them as "just factory girls."

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." —Ida B. Wells

Wells investigated every lynching case when white newspapers refused to report them. Her journalism made racial terrorism a national scandal instead of a local secret.

Myth: Suffragists were polite ladies with petitions.

Reality: Alice Paul chained herself to the White House fence and was force-fed in prison. Lucy Burns was arrested more than any other suffragist. They picketed during WWI.

Why do we sanitize women's resistance?

1913: A Sikh war veteran with a UC Berkeley degree is denied American citizenship. "Hindus cannot become citizens," the officer says, stamping DENIED. Behind him, German and Italian immigrants wait to be approved.

Bhagat Singh Thind fought for America in WWI. It wasn't enough.

Myth: Rosa Parks, tired seamstress who spontaneously refused to give up her seat.
Reality: Parks was a trained organizer at Highlander Folk School. Her "spontaneous" act was carefully planned strategic action.
Planned resistance is scarier than spontaneous exhaustion.
highlanderfolkschool.weebly.com

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

—Dolores Huerta

The supermarket manager shakes his head. "I'm not removing the grapes." You've been standing here for three hours with a picket sign. Your feet ache. Behind you, twenty farmworkers wait for your signal.

Your name is Dolores Huerta, and you're about to teach America that every grape has a story.

The deportation train arrives at midnight. Hundreds of Mexican families, some American citizens, forced onto cattle cars. The sheriff won't look you in the eye. You document everything—names, faces, violations. Your name is Luisa Moreno, and you're about to expose America's dirty secret.

The Indian boarding school superintendent smiles coldly. "We kill the Indian to save the man," he says. Your son's hair lies in black piles on the floor. But you've been teaching him the old ways in secret. Your name is Zitkála-Šá, and you're about to weaponize education.

The mill bell rings at 4 AM. Your fingers are bloody from yesterday's shifts. Other mill girls whisper about tonight's meeting—shorter hours, safer conditions.

Your name is Sarah Bagley, and you're about to build America's first labor union led by women.

right-wingers will often say that America deserves credit for ending slavery rather than blame for having slavery. but then we made a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery and they still got mad, which should tell you what their real objection is.

August 27, 1963, 11:47 PM: A civil rights leader stands at Bayard Rustin's door. "Thurmond's people are promising details about Pasadena," he says. Tomorrow, 250,000 Americans will march. Tonight, they're deciding if the organizer who made it possible gets to be visible.

1955: A gay Black communist rode a train to Montgomery to teach MLK about nonviolence. The other civil rights leaders wanted him gone. He stayed anyway. The movement was never the same.

substack.com/@annashadley...

substack.com/@annashadley...

Writing about a two-spirit person from the 1800s—how do historians/Indigenous studies folks respectfully use pronouns when you can't ask?

Hi BlueSky! I write immersive historical narratives where you become the overlooked Americans who changed history.

Latest: Brad Lomax, the Black Panther who bridged disability rights and racial justice during the longest federal building occupation in U.S. history.

handsthatlift.substack.com