We will host a panel discussion connecting stories of teenagers in the past fighting to address systemic injustice to those of the present. The 2020 annual summit will be centered on the case study of Claudette Colvin—a 15-year-old Black student in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Colvin refused to g

“Our political and legal systems are inextricably intertwined with and fueled by structural racism. This legacy predates the country’s founding, through the genocide of Indigenous populations and the kidnapping and selling of millions of Africans into slavery. Preeminent public health scholar an

“The museum has created a new collecting initiative focused on how undocumented activists are leading fights for political representation. On face value, it seems unusual that people without citizenship could be a force in government. It’s unusual but not unprecedented. In fact, these new acqui

“In 1945, Jack Fisher of Kalamazoo, Michigan, celebrated a victory, one of the first of its kind in the United States. Jack, a disabled veteran and lawyer, was elated because his hometown had just installed the nation's first curb cuts to facilitate travel in the downtown area for wheelchair users

“Soil is more than just dirt; it affects all of the foods we eat. But why is this really a conversation about history and why are we talking about this at the National Museum of American History this summer? The way Americans have treated dirt throughout American history has had wide-ranging resul

Pennsylvania Germans near the Conestoga River first made Conestoga wagons around 1750 to haul freight. By the 1810s, improved roads to Pittsburgh and Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) stimulated trade between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and settlers near the Ohio River. Wagoners with horse-drawn C

Friedan's book was instrumental in the rise of a new wave of feminism in mid-20th century America by confronting beliefs and systems that limited women's roles in society.

This Y2K advertisment was from Computer Associates, a system and application software company now owned by Broadcom of California. The front features a man standing before a very large chalk board pointing to an endlessly long scientific equation. Below the image it reads: “And Now, A Simple Expla

The reprint of Fortune Magazine’s “Issei, Nisei, Kibei”, which reviewed the war relocation program, reached a wide swathe of the United States and confronted Americans with the severe social issues taking place on the home front. Awareness of the prejudicial treatment of these specific citi

Following independence, citizens of the new nation sought to forge their own identity and create a unique history. They established holidays such as the Fourth of July and later Thanksgiving Day and chronicled the story of America from the landing at Plymouth Rock through the Founding Fathers and