FROM THE PRESIDENT
Telling the Full Story of Struggle and Triumph
Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Oakland, California, in December 2014. Black Lives Matter, a decentralized international organization, began in 2013 with the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, originated by activists and friends Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Ayọ Tometi following the acquittal of George Zimmerman following his murder of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Photo by Annette Bernhardt, shared courtesy of CC BY-SA 2.0.
History is more than a record of past events—it is a living, breathing force that shapes how we understand the present and, ultimately, how we build the future. It is full of movements that transformed the world, of moments that redefined justice, and of individuals who stood against systems of oppression, often at great personal cost. As interpreters, we have the privilege—and the responsibility—of telling these stories. But telling them fully means telling them honestly.
Too often, resistance is simplified, reduced to a collection of triumphant moments. We celebrate the victories of movements that brought us closer to justice, but we often gloss over the depth of sacrifice it took to get there. We highlight the speech, the march, the Supreme Court ruling, but we fail to linger on the years—sometimes decades—of toil, suffering, and resilience that made those moments possible.
When we truly grasp the depth of past resistance, we gain something invaluable: the ability to persist. Too often, when people fight for justice today, they expect immediate results. They sign a petition, they attend a rally, they vote in an election, and when the system doesn’t change overnight, they feel disillusioned. They begin to think that resistance doesn’t work, that progress is impossible. But history tells a different story. This is where we, as interpreters, must push deeper. It is not enough to tell people that resistance has happened. We must help them understand what it truly took. We must make it real.
On October 27, 2018, hundreds of protesters marched in downtown San Diego, California, in opposition to the Trump administration's plans to define gender as sex assigned at birth. Photo by Laurel Wreath of Victors.
No major movement for justice has ever succeeded without struggle. The fight against slavery, the battle for civil rights, the demand for women’s suffrage, the push for LGBTQ+ equality—all of these movements faced overwhelming opposition. None of them were won easily.
When I think about resistance, I think about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It is easy to summarize: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. The Black community of Montgomery, Alabama, rallied together, boycotted the buses for over a year, and ultimately, segregation on public transportation was ruled unconstitutional.
That is the version most people know. But the truth is more complex, more painful, and far more powerful.
The boycott was not a spontaneous act—it was a calculated decision, the result of years of organizing by Black women like Jo Ann Robinson and the Women’s Political Council, who had been laying the groundwork long before Parks’ arrest. The boycott itself was brutal. People walked miles to work every day, in the rain, in the blistering heat, in exhaustion, because they understood that this sacrifice was necessary. Carpool systems were set up, but drivers were harassed and ticketed by the police. Black domestic workers, who relied on buses to reach the white homes where they worked, were fired when they refused to break the boycott. The pressure was immense, the costs were high, and the victory—though transformative—did not erase the suffering it took to achieve it.
Rosa Parks, pictured here in 1955 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the background, became a public image for a community-wide movement to end public transit segregation when she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. Photo by Ebony Magazine, shared courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.
An estimated 15,000 protesters gather for the Women’s March 2018 in Morristown, New Jersey (2020 population of 20,180), with pink hats, protest signs, and calls for equality and voter turnout. Photo by Tom W. Sulcer.
That is the story that needs to be told. That is the story that makes history real. If we tell the truth about these struggles, we give people the strength to keep fighting today. When they see how much resistance past movements faced, they realize that setbacks are not signs of failure. They are part of the process. The system pushes back because it is designed to resist change—but change happens anyway, because people refuse to give up.
Resistance, in every form, has followed a similar path. The American Revolution did not begin with the signing of the Declaration of Independence—it began with decades of frustration, oppression, and smaller, often-overlooked acts of defiance. Enslaved people did not wait for emancipation to resist their bondage—they resisted every single day, in ways large and small. Some ran, risking their lives for freedom. Some fought back, leading uprisings like the Stono Rebellion, knowing full well they would not live to see the outcome. Others resisted in ways less visible—breaking tools, working slowly, maintaining their traditions and language despite brutal attempts to erase them.
And even when slavery was abolished, the resistance did not end. The Reconstruction era was met with violent backlash. The Jim Crow laws that followed were designed to maintain oppression under a different name. And yet, Black communities resisted—by building schools, by forming networks of support, by refusing to accept their oppression as permanent.
Resistance is not just one moment. It is not just one person standing against injustice. It is years of pain, years of struggle, years of choosing to fight even when the odds seem impossible.
This is what we must communicate.
As interpreters, our role is not just to tell history but to make it tangible, to show people its full shape. That means going beyond the comfortable narratives, beyond the sanitized versions, and stepping into the raw reality of what resistance looks like.
Imagine walking into a museum exhibit about the Underground Railroad. What do you see? A map, perhaps, showing the routes enslaved people used to escape. A quote from Harriet Tubman. A display about abolitionist allies who helped freedom seekers along the way.
At this opening day event for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the nineteen-month Alcatraz Occupation, original occupiers hold up their hands. Photo by Will Elder, shared courtesy of the National Park Service.
But do you see the fear? Do you hear the silence of the night as a family wades through a river, terrified that the barking dogs in the distance are coming for them? Do you feel the exhaustion, the hunger, the crushing uncertainty of what awaits them if they make it north?
It is easy to tell the story of the Underground Railroad as a success. It is much harder to force people to sit in the truth of how much was lost along the way.
This is what interpretation must do.
The same applies to Indigenous resistance. When Native activists occupied Alcatraz Island in 1969, they were not simply making a symbolic gesture—they were demanding recognition of stolen land, of broken treaties, of centuries of forced removal and violence against their people. And yet, when this moment is remembered, it is often treated as an isolated event, disconnected from the long history of Native resistance that preceded it.
The occupation of Alcatraz did not happen in a vacuum. It was the continuation of a fight that had been raging since the first European settlers arrived in the Americas, seeking freedom while taking the land and rights of others. It was the fight of the Lakota warriors at Wounded Knee. It was the Cherokee who defied removal orders. It was the generations of Native children forced into boarding schools, stripped of their language, their culture, their families—but who held onto their identities anyway.
History is not a collection of separate moments. It is a continuous, living struggle. And if we fail to show that, we fail to tell the truth.
Why does this matter? Because resistance is not a thing of the past.
We are living in a time when history is actively being rewritten—when books are being banned, when entire movements are being reduced to comfortable soundbites. People are being told that the struggles of the past are over, that justice has been won, and that we no longer need to fight.
But history tells us otherwise.
A 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City led to the Stonewall Riots, some of the most important events in the history of LGBTQIA+ rights. This image was made on Pride Weekend in 2016, one day after President Barack Obama declared the Stonewall National Monument, and less than two weeks after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. Photo by Rhododendrites, shared courtesy of CC BY-SA 4.0.
Senior citizens marched in 1973-74 to protest unemployment, inflation, and high taxes. These protesters stopped along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, to hear speeches from various officials. The rally was headed by the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Operation Push. Photo by John H. White for Documerica, shared courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.
We allow that lie to take hold if we do not teach the truth about resistance. We allow people to believe that rights are simply granted rather than fought for. We allow them to forget that every victory—every right we hold today—was earned through the suffering, sacrifice, and determination of those who came before us.
And we allow them to ignore the fact that resistance is still happening.
However, real hope doesn’t come from the illusion that change is easy—it comes from knowing that change is possible, even when it is hard.
The people who fought for justice in the past did not always see the results of their work in their lifetimes. The abolitionists who worked to end slavery, the labor activists who fought for fair wages, the environmentalists who pushed for clean air and water—many of them died before their dreams were realized. But their efforts paved the way for future generations to continue the work.
This is the lesson we need today. We may not see the world change overnight, but that does not mean our work is in vain. Every protest, every act of solidarity, every difficult conversation moves us forward. And when we recognize that we are part of a much larger arc of history, we find the strength to keep going.
As interpreters, we are not just educators. We are truth-tellers. We are responsible for challenging people in all the right ways, for giving them information that might give them a fuller perspective, and for pushing them to engage with history not as something distant but as something that continues to shape their world.
Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. Photo by Jamelle Bouie, shared courtesy of CC BY-SA 2.0.
When we tell the stories of resistance, we must tell them fully. We must tell of the victories, yes—but also of the years of loss that preceded them. We must tell of the heroes but also of the ordinary people who made the fight possible. We must tell of the progress but also of the ongoing struggles that remain unfinished. Only then can we do justice to the past. Only then can we equip people to shape the future.
As interpreters, we are not just educators. We are builders of community, of understanding, of resilience. When we tell the full history of resistance, we do more than just inform—we empower. We show people that no struggle is ever in vain. That even when change feels impossible, history tells us that it is not. That even when victory seems distant, those who came before us kept going, and so can we.
And most importantly, we show people that resistance is not just about the individual—it is about the collective. It is about standing together, about holding one another up, about refusing to let oppression go unchallenged, no matter how long the fight may take.
History is not just about where we came from—it is about where we are going. And if we interpret it honestly, if we show people both the struggle and the strength it took to overcome it, we do more than just tell a story. We ensure that those who hear our stories understand what it truly means to resist. We give people hope. Hope for the sustained fight. Hope that they are not alone. Hope that, no matter how hard the road may be, they are part of something bigger than themselves.
And that is the greatest gift we can give.
