At some point in grade school, millions of American students learn about the life and writings of Frederick Douglass, who became famous for his work as an abolitionist. This introduction often happens as part of Black History Month learning units. In fact, February was chosen as Black History Month because it’s the birth month of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Yet, the interests and accomplishments of the author best known for Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave go well beyond the abolitionist movement.

Apart from general familiarity with the federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday in January and a few lines from his “I Have a Dream” speech, many Americans understand relatively little about the views of the nation’s most celebrated civil rights leader. In order to properly value his legacy and prevent his ideas from being misrepresented—now more than ever since the civil rights movement began—it’s essential to educate ourselves about exactly how Dr. King envisioned the US becoming a unified, peaceful, and anti-racist nation.

Here’s what Americans of all political leanings need to know about Dr. King and what it means to be a political moderate versus an extremist for love, or, in other terms, non-racist versus anti-racist.

Many Americans have either long been aware of or have recently learned about deeply rooted forms of structural racism in our national systems, policies, and legislation. Just one major example of this is the ways in which racism and healthcare are intertwined and how racism in medicine negatively impacts the health and life expectancy of people of color. Here are some essential things to know about the origins of systemic racism in healthcare and how this worsens health outcomes for already-vulnerable communities of color.

Americans have long been familiar with the concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a means of counteracting racism in the workplace and elsewhere. Efforts toward promoting DEI originated in the 1960s civil rights movement, and our understanding of diversity is constantly expanding into more and more aspects of human identity and experience. Yet as many have only newly begun to realize, racial inequities are still embedded in the fabric of society, which is reflected in the workplace. In short, DEI has not addressed the systemic nature of racism.

If you’re interested in how political rhetoric works or consume your news through certain social media platforms, you may have heard of replacement theory (not to be confused with critical race theory). Americans who are encountering this ideology for the first time may understandably be wondering what exactly it is and does. Here’s what you need to know about replacement theory and how it harms Latinx immigrants and refugees to the US, among other marginalized groups.

In recent years, many forms of racial injustice—including economic disadvantages—long endured by Black Americans have reemerged in the national spotlight. Throughout the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the pandemic, there have been calls to support Black-owned businesses and learn about the human and financial losses in events like the Tulsa massacre. Yet little attention has been given to the current barriers that Black entrepreneurs (especially Black women entrepreneurs) face in launching and maintaining a successful business.

Thriving Black business ownership is an important key to bringing about greater material equity for Black individuals and communities nationwide, and yet many factors continue to hinder progress in this regard. Here are some of the major obstacles Black Americans encounter in launching and running a business.

For those following the major civil rights debates across deepening ideological rifts in America, it’s difficult to ignore the evangelical church as a major political faction. white evangelical Christians in particular have largely entrenched themselves as ultra right-wing voters. In the 2016 election, this group made up 46% of Donald Trump’s supporters and has become known for its enmity toward equality for women, people of color, LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, and other marginalized groups.

What may be more difficult to grasp is this group’s precise religious identity and how evangelical right-wing politics came to have so much national influence. The evangelical church is in fact a decentralized mix of mainstream and non-denominational Christian churches that share 4 main elements of evangelism. white evangelical churches have a well-documented history of racist beliefs and practices, as (to a lesser-known and less homogenous extent) do mainline white Protestant churches and the Catholic Church.

Throughout US history, racist stereotypes about Asian American and Black populations have worked to create and perpetuate artificial tensions between the two groups. This is counterproductive for civil rights activism, since the more time and energy any two racial groups expend in conflict with each other, the less they have to address the real root problem for both: White supremacy and systemic inequalities.