Timbuktu is often mentioned in conversations about isolated places, but this perception overlooks its vibrant history as a center of intellectual and cultural exchange during the 14th and 15th centuries. This city was once a focal point of an African renaissance, where scholars, poets, and students gathered to share ideas and foster learning.

Bayard Rustin deserves recognition alongside the prominent figures of the Civil Rights Movement. As a master strategist, pacifist, and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., Rustin was instrumental in organizing the 1963 March on Washington, which remains one of the most significant demonstrations in American history.

Alberta Jones was a true pioneer whose story deserves recognition and celebration. In 1959, she achieved a remarkable milestone by becoming the first Black lawyer to pass the Kentucky bar exam. At a time when segregation was deeply rooted in society and the legal system, Alberta opened her own law practice.

Most U.S. history textbooks present a sanitized, simplified version of the past, one that often glosses over or outright erases the voices of ordinary people. Instead of telling the full story of struggle, resistance, and resilience, these narratives tend to focus on political leaders, wars, and economic milestones, while leaving out the stories that truly shape our society.

Florida’s history with slavery doesn’t show up in the curriculum the way Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi’s does and that’s not an accident. Florida was a place of contradictions: where freedom was promised to the desperate, and where that freedom was violently revoked once the United States claimed the land.