In the midst of the tall buildings, bright lights, and world renowned restaurants of the city that never sleeps and sports the nickname “The Big Apple,” exist food deserts. One of these, a part of the South Bronx where 45,000 people within a eight-block radius have no easy access to nutritious groceries, has become the laboratory for a hyperactive, former basketball player who’s using his cheerful enthusiasm to turn a desert into an oasis of healthy food. “I’m not a farmer. I’m a ...| Americans Who Tell The Truth
On December 10, 1997, a young woman climbed 180 feet to a 4-by-6-foot platform in an ancient redwood tree. Julia Hill was participating in a sit-in, a strategy adopted by environmentalists to bring attention to the destruction of the old growth forests that clean our air, nurture our soil, support the diversity of life, and inspire awe in humankind. At the time of Julia Hill’s climb, only 3 percent of our country’s ancient redwood ecosystem survived. Luna, a 1,000-year-old Western Redwood...| Americans Who Tell The Truth
“We have a new demographic emerging that is changing the South. The one thing they don’t want to see is us crossing over racial lines and class lines and gender lines and labor lines. When this coalition comes together, you’re going to see a New South.” The Reverend Doctor William J. Barber II offered this vision of the New South in a 2013 interview with the North Carolina based, independent newspaper Indy Week. The vision of the New South reflects his upbringing in a family c...| Americans Who Tell The Truth
When I was a kid, I loved cowboy movies. In a frequent motif, the handsome sheriff, wounded in a duel with a nasty desperado, whom he had killed, limped into| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Rivera Sun’s passion for her work as an author and an activist inspires others to become peacebuilders and changemakers. She writes about nonviolence, organizes protests and rallies that bring people together, and offers nationwide training for nonviolent movements. And she is just getting started. | Americans Who Tell The Truth
Doug Rawlings, veteran, peace activist, teacher, poet, and cofounder of Veterans for Peace, has dedicated his life to abolishing war through nonviolent resistance and diplomacy. His contributions, deeply rooted in personal experience, continue to make an impact on the peace movement through the intersection of military experience, activism, and creative expression. | Americans Who Tell The Truth
As Labor Day 2025 approaches, we are mindful of all of the labor advocates who have gone before us, improving the lives of working people. If you go to the AWTT portrait gallery and filter for “worker’s rights,” you’ll find forty such outstanding figures who have fought and sacrificed over the decades, to bring workers […]| Americans Who Tell The Truth
We like balance, fairness in everything we do. A square deal. Our financial lives are based on the notion of equivalency—getting what we pay for. Equivalence| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Rosa Parks, the matriarch of the civil rights movement, has been described as an old woman who was too tired to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. However, Parks used her autobiography to correct the record. “I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two.” She also made it clear that “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Parks’s sentiment represented the view of the millions of African Americans, and their allies...| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Daniel Ellsberg, born in Chicago, graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1952 with a degree in economics. After three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a rifle corps commander, he returned to Harvard to earn his Ph.D. in economics.| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Author’s note: I wrote this piece when I was painting John Brown’s portrait back in 2012. It was my attempt to sort out the complex aspects of his character and clarify my attraction to legacy, my admiration for his fierce courage and commitment despite his darker reputation. Once the portrait was completed, I set these […]| Americans Who Tell The Truth
The justification for erasing America’s historic injustices, claiming that knowing them causes kids to feel guilt or shame, is a high priority for our current| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Americans Who Tell the Truth are dedicated to the belief that a profound understanding of citizenship is the only safeguard of democracy.| Americans Who Tell The Truth
The mythological character, Narcissus, who is mesmerized by his own image mirrored in water, is the origin of the term narcissism, an obsessively| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Trump’s superiority to, and ignorance of, the laws of nature make life itself an endangered species. The planet cries out to be rid of him and his fascist| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Some people use a recording of rain’s soothing white noise to put themselves to sleep. I like to be woken up by the real thing. My house is surrounded by old| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Yesterday afternoon, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., 17 men and women dressed all in black, stood in a line on the street in the little village of Blue Hill, Maine. Each of us held an empty pot, open end toward the road, and a wooden spoon. We were bearing witness to the starvation in Gaza enforced by […]| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Thanks to former Times Union reporter Paul Grondahl for covering the unveiling of Dr. Alice P. Green’s portrait on May 22, 2025. Grondahl also wrote the brief AWTT biography of Green that accompanies her portrait. The following article includes exerpt’s from Grondahl’s report, which appeared in the Albany Times Union on May 28. ALBANY — When […]| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Artist Robert Shetterly's visit to the Oregon Episcopal School in Portland earlier this month was a resounding success. The school hung an exhibit of twenty| Americans Who Tell The Truth
About 200 middle-school and high-school students gathered at Orono (ME) High School May 20, 2025 to celebrate their participation in this year's Samantha| Americans Who Tell The Truth
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq for a second time since 1991, after a decade of imposing deadly sanctions. This Second Gulf War, launched as part of the Global War on Terrorism, killed over 300,000 Iraqi people. According to the Costs of War, the 2003 U.S. invasion has left 9.2 million Iraqis internally displaced or as refugees.| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Channapha Khamvongsa’s sincerity and commitment to her mission are apparent and have been reinforced, rather than subverted, over the course of a tough life.| Americans Who Tell The Truth
Sherri Mitchell Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset is the daughter of two First Nations, the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy tribes, whose sovereign territories are found within the borders of the state of Maine. Both nations are members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which also includes the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and Abenaki peoples, and the Indigenous Algonquian language group. But it is in clear, powerful English that Sherri delivers the message of our interconnected and shared histories and our inext...| Americans Who Tell The Truth
2025 Martin Luther King Day celebration in Brooksville, Maine with AWTT artist Robert Shetterly.| Americans Who Tell The Truth