Concern for her community compelled Amanda Jones to stand up and speak out in summer of 2022 against injustice – in this case, a movement to ban books. Books save lives, she says. Her brief speech in support of books, diversity, and against censorship was a small act that launched her into the midst of a national battle over book banning that continues today.
DJ Yearwood, a 19-year-old from Missouri, successfully campaigned for a fivefold increase in the state's investment in tobacco prevention and cessation. He followed that up with a campaign to lower the voting age in Missouri for local elections as a more effective way to engage teens in civic life and turn them into lifelong voters.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Doug Oplinger relied on data analysis and an intimate knowledge of Ohioans and the state of Ohio democracy to predict Donald Trump’s election in November and his authoritarian second term.
Cedar Milazzo started a company to combat the spread of false, misleading, and dangerous information on the Internet. He and his team created a technology platform that can identify whether a web page contains credible or untrustworthy information. His challenge was to find an application for the technology that would sustain the business.
Leveraging his identity as a career Army officer, historian, and born-and-bred Southerner once immersed in the Lost Cause and the heroism of Robert E. Lee, Ty Seidule has pushed the military and the country as a whole to confront and acknowledge the War of the Rebellion, as the war was formally known, for what it was – a treasonous act by the South’s leaders.
but it’s often lost in the 24/7 news stream or distorted or obscured,
often intentionally so, by the people who make the news.
The American Leader offers historical storylines and problem briefs to
home in on what’s really happening beneath the surface of today’s headlines.
We sift through the info stream for you, consulting and processing
hundreds of sources that may not make the headlines to connect the dots and
clarify the problems we face and showcase the efforts being made to solve them.
It’s time-consuming work that needs your support.
but it’s often lost in the 24/7 news stream or distorted or obscured, often intentionally so, by the people who make the news. The American Leader offers historical storylines and problem briefs to home in on what’s really happening beneath the surface of today’s headlines. We sift through the infostream for you, consulting and processing hundreds of sources to connect the dots and clarify the problems we face and showcase the efforts being made to solve them. It’s time-consuming work that needs your support.
We have to expect more to get more. We can make this a better country but only if we believe improving on the status quo is possible. A lot of people do believe and are hard at work to solve our systemic problems. We bring you their stories.
