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Anne Frank’s Message Is Still Important Today [Article]

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Anne Frank’s Message Is Still Important Today [Article]

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Description: This article explores the lasting impact of Anne Frank’s diary and why her story continues to resonate with young people today. It discusses how Anne’s words serve as both a historical record of oppression and a reminder of the dangers of discrimination, hate, and authoritarianism. The article connects Anne’s story to modern issues, emphasizing the importance of remembering the past to prevent similar injustices in the present.

Guiding Question: Why is Anne Frank’s story still relevant today, and how can young people use her message to stand against injustice?

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“Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.”

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The White Rose: Young Germans Who Took on the Nazis [Video Interview]

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The White Rose: Young Germans Who Took on the Nazis [Video Interview]

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Description: In this discussion from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, historian Rebecca Erbelding joins host Dr. Edna Friedberg to explore the story of the White Rose, a student-led resistance group in Nazi Germany. These young activists distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, urging their fellow citizens to resist.

Guiding Question: Why is it important to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s dangerous?

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The White Rose  Young Germans Who Took on the Nazis

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First They Came: A Warning About Silence

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First They Came: A Warning About Silence

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Description: This short but powerful poem serves as a warning about the dangers of staying silent in the face of injustice. Niemöller, a German pastor, initially supported Hitler but later opposed the Nazi regime and was imprisoned.

Guiding Question: How does this poem warn about the dangers of silence in the face of oppression?

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First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.

-Martin Niemöller

This quote is attributed to the prominent German pastor Martin Niemöller. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a poem.

After World War II, Niemöller openly spoke about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.

Niemöller's Quote at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The quote "First they came for..." has been part of the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since its opening in 1993. Initially, Niemöller's words were part of a text panel. Today, they are prominently featured on a wall as the final words of the exhibition. They serve as an indictment of passivity and indifference during the Holocaust.

Origins of the Quote

This Martin Niemöller quote originated after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Niemöller was well-known for his opposition to the Nazi regime and as a former victim of Nazi persecution. In 1946, he traveled on a lecture tour in the western zones of Allied-occupied Germany. In his lectures, Niemöller publicly confessed his own inaction and indifference to the fate of many of the Nazis' victims. He used phrases such as "I did not speak out..." or "we preferred to keep quiet." He explained that in the first years of the Nazi regime he had remained silent as the Nazis persecuted other Germans, especially members of leftist political movements with whom he disagreed.

Niemöller considered his fellow Germans as the primary audience for his confession. In his lectures, he lamented that individual Germans failed to accept responsibility for Nazism, German atrocities in German-occupied countries, and the Holocaust. According to him, individual Germans were passing the blame onto their neighbors, superiors, or accept personal responsibility for Nazi organizations like the Gestapo. Through his confession, he wanted to show Germans how to complicity in the Nazi regime.

Why are there multiple versions of Niemöller's quote?

There are multiple versions of the quote "First they came for...." Some versions include a different list of victims. This is because Niemöller often presented his lectures impromptu and changed the list of victims from lecture to lecture. At different times and in different combinations, Niemöller listed: communists, socialists, trade unionists, Jews, people with mental and physical disabilities, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Some printed versions of the quote include Protestants and Catholics in the list of victims. 1 Given the history of the Nazi regime and Niemöller's personal experiences, it was highly unlikely that he included either group in his confession of complicity. In his post-war lectures, Niemöller specifically focused on groups that the Nazis targeted prior to his arrest in 1937, and for whom he could have advocated in the 1930s, but did not.

Regardless of his exact words, Niemöller's message remained consistent: he declared that through silence, indifference, and inaction, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt that it was particularly egregious that he and other German Protestant church leaders, whom he believed had positions of moral authority, chose to remain silent.

Today, the quote has entered public discourse and popular culture. It is variously referred to as a poem, a confession, or an aphorism. The quote is also frequently adapted and rewritten as a political tool, often in ways that are not in keeping with Niemöller's original intentions.

Who was Martin Niemöller?

Martin Niemöller was born the son of a Lutheran pastor in the German Empire on January 1 4, 1892. At age 21 he started his career in the Imperial German Navy as an officer. During World War I (1914-1918), Niemöller served as an officer on a U-Boat (a submarine). For his role in sinking Allied ships he earned the high honor, the Iron Cross First Class, in 1917.

Niemöller was a fervent nationalist and anti-communist. He was devastated by Germany's defeat in World War I and the collapse of the German Empire. He also strongly opposed the new postwar German government called the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Unwilling to serve the new government, Niemöller resigned from the Navy in 1919.

In 1920, Niemöller began seminary training at the University of Münster. He was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1924. During the 1920s and early 1930s, he participated in right-wing and antisemitic political parties and organizations.

How did Niemöller react to the Nazi regime?

In keeping with his right-wing, antisemitic outlook, Niemöller enthusiastically welcomed the Nazi regime in 1933. He voted for the Nazi Party in March of that year.

Niemöller's enthusiasm for the new government led by The German Christians portrayed Jesus as an Adolf Hitler quickly waned, however, when the Nazi regime began to interfere in church policy. In 1933, Hitler threw his support behind a radical faction within the Protestant churches known as the Aryan and denied that he was Jewish. They rejected the authority of the Old Testament and sought to alter parts of the New Testament. Their goal was to remove what they called "Jewish elements" from Christianity. This included prohibiting pastors with Jewish ancestry from Deutsche Christen (in English, the German Christians). serving in the Protestant church. Niemöller led the opposition to the German Christians and Hitler's church policy.

Niemöller's attitude toward the Nazi regime further transformed in January 1934 after a meeting with Adolf Hitler. Niemöller and other prominent Protestant church leaders met Hitler to discuss the relationship between church and state. At this meeting, it became clear that the Gestapo (the Secret State Police) had tapped Niemöller's phone. The Pastors Emergency League ( Pfarrernotbund), which Niemöller had helped found in 1933, was also under close state surveillance. Hitler's hostility made it clear to Niemöller that the Protestant Church and the Nazi state could not be reconciled unless Protestants were willing to compromise their faith. Niemöller was not willing to do this.

As a result, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Nazi church policy. On July 1, 1937, the Gestapo arrested and imprisoned him as a political prisoner for the next eight years. A number of international religious leaders made calls for his release. However, Niemöller was not freed until May 1945, when the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and liberated him and other concentration camp prisoners.

An Enduring yet Controversial Legacy

After the end of World War II, Niemöller's prominence as an opposition figure gave him international stature. He was often at the center of controversy for his outspoken views. For example, he opposed the postwar denazification policies of the Allied powers. He believed these policies caused more harm than good. He also refused to side unequivocally with the United States in the Cold War. As a result, some of his critics called him a communist.

Despite these controversies, Niemöller is remembered as one of the more prominent Germans to publicly acknowledge his moral failures committed during the Nazi era, as well as the moral failures of his nation and church. And he continued to speak publicly about the relationship between inaction and Germans' responsibility for the persecution and murder of Jews in the Holocaust.

Last Edited: Apr 11, 2023

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the Socialists..."

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Learn about the origins and legacy of Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous postwar words, "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out..."

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The Impact of Nazi Propaganda: Visual Essay 

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The Impact of Nazi Propaganda: Visual Essay 

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Short Description: This visual essay from Facing History & Ourselves explains how propaganda influenced people’s beliefs during the Holocaust. It looks at how images and messages were used to spread harmful ideas and control public opinion.

Essential Question: How does propaganda shape public opinion and enable oppression?

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Explore a curated selection of primary source propaganda images from Nazi Germany.

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Teenagers Who Resisted the Nazis [Podcast]

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Teenagers Who Resisted the Nazis [Podcast]

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Description: This podcast episode from Stuff You Missed in History Class explores how young people in Nazi Germany, including the White Rose resistance group and the Edelweiss Pirates, risked their lives to defy the Nazi regime. These student activists and rebellious youth used leaflets, graffiti, and acts of defiance to push back against totalitarian control. Their stories highlight the bravery of those who refused to stay silent.

Guiding Question: How did young people resist Nazi rule, and what can we learn from their courage?

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SYMHC Classics: The White Rose and Nazi Germany - Stuff You Missed in History Class | iHeart

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This week, we’re revisiting an episode from previous hosts! During World War II, the Nazi party did not tolerate dissent, but some Germans did attempt to resist Hitler’s government including the White Rose, a secret resistance group.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Strange Fruit The First Great Protest Song [Article & Song]

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Strange Fruit The First Great Protest Song [Article & Song]

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Description: This article from The Guardian explores the history and impact of Strange Fruit, one of the most haunting protest songs in American history. Originally a poem, the lyrics describe the horrors of racial violence and lynching in the United States. Billie Holiday, just 23 years old at the time, turned the song into a chilling and powerful anthem against injustice. Her emotional performance sparked controversy, challenged societal norms, and inspired generations of activists.

Guiding Question: How does this song use metaphor and imagery to expose racial injustice and violence?

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t is a clear, fresh New York night in March 1939. You're on a date and you've decided to investigate a new club in a former speakeasy on West 4th Street: Cafe Society, which calls itself "The Wrong Place for the Right People". Even if you don't get the gag on the way in - the doormen wear tattered clothes - then the penny drops when you enter the L-shaped, 200-capacity basement and see the satirical murals spoofing Manhattan's high-society swells. Unusually for a New York nightclub, black patrons are not just welcomed but privileged with the best seats in the house.

You've heard the buzz about the resident singer, a 23-year-old black woman called Billie Holiday who made her name up in Harlem with Count Basie's band. She has golden-brown, almost Polynesian skin, a ripe figure and a single gardenia in her hair. She has a way of owning the room, but she's not flashy. Her voice is plump and pleasure-seeking, prodding and caressing a song until it yields more delights than its author had intended, bringing a spark of vivacity and a measure of cool to even the hokier material.

And then it happens. The house lights go down, leaving Holiday illuminated by the hard, white beam of a single spotlight.

She begins her final number.

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit." This, you think, isn't your usual lovey-dovey stuff. "Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." What is this? "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze." Lynching? It's a song about lynching? The chatter from the tables dries up. Every eye in the room is on the singer, every ear on the song. After the last word - a long, abruptly severed cry of "crop" - the whole room snaps to black. When the house lights go up, she's gone.

Do you applaud, awed by the courage and intensity of the performance, stunned by the grisly poetry of the lyrics, sensing history moving through the room? Or do you shift awkwardly in your seat, shudder at the strange vibrations in the air, and think to yourself: call this entertainment?

This is the question that will throb at the heart of the vexed relationship between politics and pop for decades to come, and this is the first time it has demanded to be asked.

Written by a Jewish communist called Abel Meeropol, Strange Fruit was not by any means the first protest song, but it was the first to shoulder an explicit political message into the arena of entertainment. Unlike the robust workers' anthems of the union movement, it did not stir the blood; it chilled it. "That is about the ugliest song I have ever heard," Nina Simone would later marvel. "Ugly in the sense that it is violent and tears at the guts of what white people have done to my people in this country." For all these reasons, it was something entirely new. Up to this point, protest songs functioned as propaganda, but Strange Fruit proved they could be art.

It is a song so good that dozens of singers have since tried to put their stamp on it, and Holiday's performance is so strong that none of them have come close to outclassing her - in 1999, Time magazine named her first studio version the "song of the century".

Although lynching was already on the decline by the time of Strange Fruit - the grotesque photograph of a double hanging which moved Meeropol to pick up his pen had been taken in Indiana in 1930 - it remained the most vivid symbol of American racism, a stand-in for all the more subtle forms of discrimination affecting the black population. Perhaps only the visceral horror that lynching inspired gave Meeropol the necessary conviction to write a song with no precedent, one that required a new songwriting vocabulary.

Meeropol, who taught at a high school in the Bronx and churned out reams of topical songs, poems and plays under the gentle alias Lewis Allan, published a poem under the title Bitter Fruit in the union-run New York Teacher magazine in 1937. The later name change was inspired. "Bitter" is too baldly judgmental. "Strange", however, evokes a haunting sense of something out of joint. It puts the listener in the shoes of a curious observer spying the hanging shapes from afar and moving closer towards a sickening realisation.

Meeropol worked out a tune and Strange Fruit quickly became a fixture at leftwing gatherings during 1938, sung by his wife and various friends. It even made it to Madison Square Garden, via black singer Laura Duncan. In the crowd was one Robert Gordon, who had recently taken on a job at Cafe Society, directing the headlining show by Billie Holiday. The club was the brainchild of New Jersey shoe salesman Barney Josephson: a pithy antidote to the snooty, often racist elitism of other New York nightspots. Opening the night before New Year's Eve 1938, it owed much of its instant success to Holiday.

In her 23 years, Holiday had already seen plenty, although her notoriously unreliable autobiography Lady Sings the Blues obscures as much as it reveals. Born in Philadelphia, she spent some time running errands in a Baltimore whorehouse, "just about the only place where black and white folks could meet in any natural way", where she first discovered jazz. After she accused a neighbour of attempting to rape her, the 10-year-old Holiday, an incorrigible truant, was sent to a Catholic reform school until her mother secured her release. Moving with her mother to New York, she worked in another brothel, this time doing more than errands, and was jailed for solicitation. Upon her release she began singing in Harlem jazz clubs, where she caught the eye of producer John Hammond, who made her one of the swing era's hottest stars.

Meeropol played Josephson his song and asked if he could bring it to Holiday. The singer later insisted she fell in love with it right away. Meeropol remembered it differently, believing that she performed it only as a favour to Josephson and Gordon: "To be perfectly frank, I don't think she felt comfortable with the song."

Arthur Herzog, one of Holiday's regular songwriters, claimed that arranger Danny Mendelsohn rewrote Meeropol's tune, which he uncharitably dubbed "something or other alleged to be music", which might have made the difference to Holiday.

The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abe Smith in Indiana in 1930 inspired Abel Meeropol to write Strange Fruit. Photograph: AP

Either way, Holiday road-tested the song at a party in Harlem and received what would become a familiar response: shocked silence followed by a roar of approval. Meeropol was there the night she debuted it at Cafe Society. "She gave a startling, most dramatic and effective interpretation which could jolt an audience out of its complacency anywhere," he marvelled. "This was exactly what I wanted the song to do and why I wrote it."

Josephson, a natural showman, knew there was no point slipping Strange Fruit into the body of the set and pretending it was just another song. He drew up some rules: first, Holiday would close all three of her nightly sets with it; second, the waiters would halt all service beforehand; third, the whole room would be in darkness but for a sharp, bright spotlight on Holiday's face; fourth, there would be no encore. "People had to remember Strange Fruit, get their insides burned by it," he explained.

It was not, by any stretch, a song for every occasion. It infected the air in the room, cut conversation stone dead, left drinks untouched, cigarettes unlit. Customers either clapped till their hands were sore, or walked out in disgust. Back then, before her life took a darker turn, Holiday was able to leave the song, and its politics, at the door on the way out. When Frankie Newton would hold forth on Marcus Garvey's black nationalism or Stalin's five-year plan, she would snap, "I don't want to fill my head with any of that shit." Holiday's biographer John Chilton suggests that this was not because she wasn't interested but because she felt embarrassed by her lack of education. All that she knew and felt about being black in America, she poured into the song.

Holiday's regular label, Columbia, blanched at the prospect of recording it, so she turned to Commodore Records, a small, leftwing operation based at Milt Gabler's record shop on West 52nd Street. On 20 April 1939, Holiday entered Brunswick's World Broadcasting Studios with Frankie Newton's eight-piece Cafe Society Band and recorded Strange Fruit in one four-hour session. Worried that the song was too short, Gabler asked pianist Sonny White to improvise a suitably stealthy introduction.

On the single, Holiday doesn't open her mouth until 70 seconds in. Like Josephson with his spotlight, the musicians use that time to set the scene, drawing the listener in as if to a ghost story. Newton's muted trumpet line hovers in the air like marsh gas; White's minor piano chords walk the listener towards the fateful spot; then, at last, there's Holiday. Others might have overplayed the irony or punched home the moral judgment too forcefully, but she sings it as though her responsibility is simply to document the song's eerie tableau; to bear witness. Her voice moves softly through the dark, closing in on the swinging bodies like a camera lens coming into focus. In doing so, she perfects the song, narrowing the sarcasm of "gallant South" to a fine point and cooling the temperature of the most overheated image: "the stench of burning flesh". She is charismatic but not ostentatious, curling the words just so. Her gifts to the song are vulnerability, understatement and immediacy: the listener is right there, at the base of the tree. Look, she is saying. Just look.

Released three months later, it became not just a hit but a cause celebre. Campaigners for an anti-lynching law posted copies to congressmen. The New York Post's Samuel Grafton called it "a fantastically perfect work of art, one which reversed the usual relationship between a black entertainer and her white audience: 'I have been entertaining you,' she seems to say, 'now you just listen to me.' If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise."

Holiday quit Cafe Society in August 1939, but she took Strange Fruit with her and carried it like an unexploded bomb. In Washington DC, a local newspaper wondered whether it might actually provoke a new wave of lynchings. At New York's Birdland, the promoter confiscated customers' cigarettes, lest their firefly glow distract from the spotlight's intensity. When some promoters ordered her not to sing it, Holiday added a clause to her contract guaranteeing her the option. Not that she always exercised that right. "I only do it for people who might understand and appreciate it," she told radio DJ Daddy-O Daylie. "This is not a 'June-Moon-Croon-Tune'."

Yet Holiday could no more detach herself from it than if the lyrics had been tattooed on her skin. Strange Fruit would haunt Holiday for the rest of her life. Some fans, including her former producer John Hammond, blamed it for robbing her of her lightness. Others pointed out that her burgeoning heroin habit did that job.

So did the persistent racism which poisoned her life just as it poisoned the life of every black American. In 1944, a naval officer called her a nigger and, her eyes hot with tears, she smashed a beer bottle against a table and lunged at him with the serrated glass. A little while later, a friend spotted her wandering down 52nd Street and called out, "How are you doing, Lady Day?" Her reply was viciously blunt: "Well, you know, I'm still a nigger." No wonder she clutched the song tightly to her breast, as a shield and a weapon, too.

Holiday discovered heroin in the early 40s, an addiction that eventually earned her a year-long prison term in 1947. Ten days after her release, she performed a comeback show at New York's Carnegie Hall.

According to Lady Sings the Blues, she accidentally pierced her scalp with a hatpin and sang with blood trickling down her face.

There could be only one contender for the closing number. "By the time I started on Strange Fruit," she wrote, "between the sweat and blood, I was a mess." Time called the performance "throat-tightening".

During the 50s, she performed it less often and, when she did, it could be agonising to watch. Her relationship with it became almost masochistic. The worse her mood, the more likely she was to add it to the set, yet it pained her every time, especially when it prompted walkouts by racist audience members.

By the latter half of the decade, her body was wasted, her voice weathered down to a hoarse rasp, and Strange Fruit was the only song that seemed to dignify her suffering, wrapping her own decline in a wider American tragedy. Writing about her final years in his definitive book Strange Fruit: the Biography of a Song, David Margolick says: "she had grown oddly, sadly suited to capture the full grotesqueness of the song. Now, she not only sang of bulging eyes and twisted mouths. She embodied them." It was as if the song, having lived inside her for so long, had finally warped its host.
Extracted from 33 Revolutions Per Minute by Dorian Lynskey, published by Faber & Faber Ltd on 3 March at £17.99. To order a copy for £13.59 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846

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Strange Fruit: the first great protest song

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t is a clear, fresh New York night in March 1939. You're on a date and you've decided to investigate a new club in a former speakeasy on West 4th Street: Cafe Society, which calls itself "The Wrong Place for the Right People".

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Description: Not all young people in Nazi Germany conformed to Hitler’s ideology. This article explores two youth groups—the Edelweiss Pirates and the Swing Kids—who rejected Nazi expectations and found ways to resist. The Edelweiss Pirates engaged in active defiance, from fighting Hitler Youth patrols to distributing anti-Nazi materials, while the Swing Kids rebelled through jazz music, fashion, and nonconformist social circles. Though their resistance differed, both groups challenged the Nazi regime at great personal risk.

Guiding Question: How did the Edelweiss Pirates and Swing Kids resist Nazi control, and why did the Nazi government see them as a threat?

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Not all young people willingly participated in Nazi youth groups. Some, like Hans Scholl (see reading, Disillusionment in the Hitler Youth), became disillusioned and dropped out. In the late 1930s, as Hitler Youth activities began to focus less on leisure activities and more on military drills and preparation for war, other young people formed their own groups in which they could more freely express their own interests and ideas. One of these groups was the Edelweiss Pirates. Members of the group, both boys and girls, would gather from time to time for weekend camping trips. They would pitch tents in the forest, sing, talk, and fight Hitler Youth patrols. The group's slogan was "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth." One Edelweiss Pirate explained his choice to join the group by saying, "It's the Hitler Youth's own fault . . . every order I was given contained a threat." The group's resistance to the Nazis continued throughout World War II.

Other young people who refused to join Nazi youth organizations defined themselves through their favorite music. They called themselves the Swing-Jugend ("swing kids"). The swing kids didn't make open political statements, but their love of foreign music, their wild style of dancing, and their acceptance of Jews and other outsiders were a strong contrast to the disciplined, formal culture encouraged by the Nazi Party. Historian Richard Bessel describes the "swing kids":

The swing youth were not anti-fascist in a political sense-their behavior was indeed emphatically anti-political-both Nazi slogans and traditional nationalism were of profound indifference to them. They sought their counter-identity in what they saw as the "slovenly" culture of . . . England and America. They accepted Jews and "half-Jews" into their groups . . . and gave ovations to visiting bands from Belgium and Holland.

The very disgust shown by the authors of the Nazi reports . . . indicate that Nazi officialdom felt attacked at the heart of its concept of itself and the state. This is the only way, too, to explain the reaction of Heinrich Himmler, who wanted to put the "ringleaders" of the swing movement into concentration camps for at least two or three years of beatings, punitive drill and forced labor.

The kind of behavior that so upset Himmler is described in a Hitler Youth report on a 1940 swing festival attended by 500 to 600 teenagers in Hamburg.

The dancers made an appalling sight. None of the couples danced normally; there was only swing of the worst sort. Sometimes two boys danced with one girl; sometimes several formed a circle, linking arms and jumping, slapping hands, even rubbing the backs of their heads together; and then, bent double, with the top half of the body hanging loosely down, long hair flopping into the face, they dragged themselves round practically to their knees. When the band played a rumba, the dancers went into wild ecstasy. They all leaped around and mumbled the chorus in English. The band played wilder and wilder numbers; none of the players was sitting any longer, they all "jitterbugged" on the stage like wild animals. Frequently boys could be observed dancing together, without exception with two cigarettes in the mouth, one in each corner . . .

Connection Questions

1. Why do you think the young people who questioned Nazism formed their own groups? Why did Nazi officials believe these groups were dangerous?

2. To what extent were the activities of these alternative youth groups motivated by political opposition to the Nazis? To what extent were they motivated by teenage rebellion?

3. What do the two groups suggest about the successes and failures of Nazi ambitions to control the youth of Germany?

4. What do the descriptions of these groups suggest about the power of art and music? How can listening to or performing music be a form of rebellion? How can dancing be a form of rebellion?

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Learn about the Edelweiss Pirates and the Swing Kids, two German youth groups that questioned Nazism.

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Description: The Wave is a made-for-TV movie directed by Alex Grasshoff, based on the real-life Third Wave experiment conducted by history teacher Ron Jones at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto in 1967. The experiment was designed to show how authoritarian movements can take hold—even in democratic societies—by demonstrating how easily people can be drawn into strict group conformity and obedience to authority. The movie is a historically fictionalized version of the experiment, where students begin to adopt an extreme, cult-like mentality, mirroring the rise of fascist regimes like Nazi Germany. This film is particularly relevant to YOU as Palo Alto students, as it portrays events that actually happened right here in PAUSD.

Guiding Question: How does The Wave experiment reveal the vulnerability of any society—including our own community in Palo Alto—to authoritarianism, and what lessons can we take from it to prevent history from repeating itself?

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Anne Frank Youth Network [Website- Global Youth Activism]

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Anne Frank Youth Network [Website- Global Youth Activism]

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Description: The Anne Frank Youth Network (AFYN) is a global community of young people, ages 16-26, dedicated to promoting tolerance, human rights, and democratic values. Inspired by Anne Frank’s legacy, AFYN members work to combat discrimination and injustice through education and activism. This initiative, developed by the Anne Frank House, connects youth across the world to continue Anne’s message of hope and resistance.

Guiding Question: How can young people today use Anne Frank’s legacy to stand up for human rights and fight discrimination?

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Anne Frank Youth Network | A global network of young changemakers

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The Anne Frank Youth Network is a global network of young changemakers. Join us in promoting equal rights and active citizenship, and building a future free of discrimination, prejudice and injustice.

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Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech [Video]

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Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech [Video]

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Description: At just 17, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In this video, she delivers a powerful acceptance speech and compelling message on resisting oppression through education and activism. She speaks out against injustice, emphasizing that the fight for girls’ education is a fight against forces that seek to silence and control. Her words highlight the power of knowledge as a tool for resistance and inspire young people to stand up for their rights, even in the face of adversity.

Guiding Question: How does Malala’s story and advocacy demonstrate the power of young people in resisting oppression?

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Malala Yousafzai Nobel Peace Prize Speech

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Description: This TIME article highlights singer-songwriter Andra Day and the impact of her song Rise Up, which was originally inspired by a friend’s battle with cancer. However, the song’s powerful message of resilience and strength has resonated far beyond its original intent. Rise Up has been adopted as an unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, symbolizing perseverance in the fight for racial justice and human rights. Through her soulful performance, Day encourages people to stand up against oppression and keep pushing forward, even in the face of adversity.

Guiding Question: How does Rise Up inspire people to stand against oppression, and why has it been embraced by social justice movements like Black Lives Matter?

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What inspired you to write "Rise Up"? My music and my personal life were both stagnating at the time, and a friend of mine had been diagnosed with cancer. "Rise Up" started as a sort of prayer-I thought about what I needed to hear to be able to get back on my feet. Most of the song came streaming out in the first freestyle recording. Honestly, there are lines in there I'd normally find cliché. But sometimes a good cliché is exactly what you need in a moment of hopelessness.

Black Lives Matter has adopted the song as its unofficial anthem. That's right. It's a huge honor because Black Lives Matter represents standing up to oppression and persecution. Having the group connect with "Rise Up" made me more aware that I need to use my platform to serve the community.

You've also helped shed light on lynching in America by covering Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" for the Equal Justice Initiative. What are you hoping to achieve by tying your music to activism? I want to tell the truth about the racial terror that's happened and that's still happening today in this country. Too often we change the narrative to make things more digestible, but the reality is, if we don't address injustice honestly and openly, we'll never heal.

You collaborated with Common on "Stand Up for Something" for a biopic on the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice. Why did you want to get involved with that project?
I think our purpose as human beings is directly tied to how we help people. And Thurgood Marshall's vision was exemplary of that, from his quest for equal justice to simply having true empathy for others.

Whom do you look up to? People like Common, Stevie Wonder, and Michelle Obama are focused on love, healing, and serving others. They understand that just because you haven't walked in someone else's shoes doesn't mean his or her experience is any less important than your own.

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Andra Day Explains Her Inspiration Behind Her Music

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Andra Day on what inspired her to write the song 'Rise Up,' collaborating with Common for 'Marshall' biopic and tying her work to activism.

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Amanda Gorman on Poetry’s Role in Social Change [Article]

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Amanda Gorman on Poetry’s Role in Social Change [Article]

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Description: This article explores the journey of Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, and her dedication to using poetry as a form of activism. Gorman discusses how her work amplifies issues of social justice, equity, and empowerment, particularly for young people and marginalized communities. Her poetry, including The Hill We Climb, has inspired a new generation to use their voices for change.

Guiding Question: How does Amanda Gorman use poetry as a tool for activism, and what impact does her work have on young people today?

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Amanda Gorman on Poetry’s Role in Social Change — Pulse Spikes

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“Across the continuum of time, activism has really been that needle that has been threading the tapestry of progress. Whoever and wherever you are, taking it upon yourself to be active both in thought and action always speaks change.”