In January 2014, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice issued the joint Dear Colleague Letter on Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline. Its intention was to provide context and guidance on how school teachers and administrators could approach student discipline without discriminating based on race, color, or national origin.

I spent more than 20 minutes on the phone with a friend last week, searching the internet and discussing the definitions of the terms non-binary, gender fluid, and gender-nonconforming. That impromptu research session was spurred on by the proclamation of another friend less than a week before. Their announcement made us realize that neither of us was sure that our understanding of those terms was correct.

She had been violated. The police were pushing her into their vehicle to take her away. She turned to the onlookers and yelled to them, “Why don’t you guys do something?”. And hundreds of them did do something. They fought back. For several nights, using their voices, their bodies, and bricks, a community made Greenwich Village their battleground for the uprising we know today as the Stonewall Rebellion.

You will hear us. You will hear the voices of millions of Americans who oppose your narrow worldview, shallow rhetoric and proposed policies that benefit those who have the most, while hurting the most vulnerable. Our voices will not be made silent. We stand in truth. We stand on the right side of history.

This Columbus Day, I am extra sensitive about the framing of history. As we all know, Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas nor was he the first European to visit the Western Hemisphere. There weremillions of people living freely on the land that he stumbled upon in 1492. Not long ago, a newcomer to the neighborhood complained to me about how slow the community was progressing.

Since President Obama took office, he has accomplished a great deal. In my view, the president’s leadership has led to a safer country and a stronger economy. But Wednesday, when President Obama announced that he supported the right of same-sex couples to marry and be treated as equal citizens under the law, he reminded me why I voted for him.

As the country celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. King on the federal holiday in his honor, that has become a National Day of Service, ‘a day on not a day off’ I find myself reflecting once again on my visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. I don’t remember a single quote and I faintly remember the size of the monument or the expression on his face.

Sinister and sensual, frightening yet full of faith, a feast of the eyes but often hard to digest, 30 Americans, the new exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art that opens October 1st is a breathtaking collection of work. Highlighting the exceptional work of some of the most dynamic and thought provoking African American visual artists in the last three decades 30 Americans provides visitors new and different lenses to view black identity through their art.