The Union gave work or protection to “Contrabands,” enslaved people who fled to the Union lines. A Union military officer in charge determined the freedom of the escapees. Not all enslaved escapees gained freedom.

The Little Rock Nine, a group of nine African American students, began desegregating Arkansas’s Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Despite the danger and daily harassment requiring military guards, the students excelled in life. Melba Pattillo Beals experienced severe harassment and threats at school. She wrote about her struggles in her memoir, “Warriors Don’t Cry.” Once suspended for accidentally spilling chili on white students while being harassed, Minnijean Brown-T

Eliza Jane Cate (1812-1884) began working at the Amoskeag Mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, sometime around 1830. By the 1840s, she had moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, because of higher wages. Her first piece appeared in The Lowell Offering in 1842, entitled “Leisure Hours of the Mill Girls.” Her fellow mill-mate and author, Hariet Hanson Robinson, nicknamed her “the Edgeworth of New England.” Both wrote about everyday life, social dynamics, and moral development. “The Offer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisted the takeover of the German Christian Church by imposing Aryan ideas. He served in the Abwehr as a double agent and died for it.