National

  • Overturning Opportunity

    The Fourth of July holiday is meant to bring Americans together to celebrate the promise of our Declaration of Independence. This year we are reminded again of the work that still needs to be done to make our nation live up to its ideals.

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  • Listening Again to Loving

    On June 12, 1967, Supreme Court justices ruled 9-0 that Virginia’s law banning interracial marriage and all others like it were unconstitutional and that the freedom to marry was “a basic civil right.”

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  • Education

    Juneteenth: Knowing our history

    Juneteenth marks one crucial point in time, but also reminds us to sustain the liberation efforts that made the events of June 19, 1865 possible. CDF embraces that charge today and everyday as we build community with you so young people grow up with dignity, hope, and joy. 

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  • Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free

    Our nation is about to celebrate its third commemoration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday, marking the jubilant day in June 1865 when many enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free from federal troops arriving in Galveston after the end of the Civil War. The news came more than two and a half years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing all slaves in the Confederate states.

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  • “The Mindless Menace of Violence”

    The day after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had announced his decision to run for President, gave a speech at the Cleveland City Club. He said that it was not a time for politics, but a time of “shame and sorrow,” and he spoke on the “mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives”.

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  • Service Announcements

    CDF Founder’s Day to honor Marian Wright Edelman

    Thank you, Mrs. Edelman, for your unwavering dedication to defending and uplifting America’s children and youth. Your commitment for the past 50 years has brought us closer to a nation where marginalized children flourish, leaders prioritize their well-being and communities wield the power to ensure they thrive.  

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  • Gun Violence

    Wear Orange

    The Wear Orange movement began in honor of Hadiya Pendleton, an honors student and drum majorette who was shot and killed on a Chicago playground in January 2013 just days after she had performed in President Obama’s second inaugural parade.

    | National