People from very different backgrounds have faced fierce opposition, stayed together, and changed society. These moments show what is possible.
The Civil Rights Movement
The struggle against segregation was led by Black Americans and carried by churches, students, and neighbors. It also drew allies of many backgrounds, including white, Jewish, Latino, and Asian Americans who marched, registered voters, and in some cases risked their lives beside them. The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Why it matters now: those laws were won by people who refused to let division decide the outcome.
The Delano Grape Strike
On September 8, 1965, Filipino farm workers led by Larry Itliong walked off the grape fields in Delano, California, demanding fair pay and decent working conditions. Growers had long tried to keep farm workers divided by race and to use one group to break another’s strikes. Itliong knew the strike could not succeed alone, so he reached out to Mexican American workers, including Dolores Huerta and the National Farm Workers Association. They joined, and the two groups stood together through five years of strikes, marches, and a national grape boycott. Their alliance became the United Farm Workers.
Why it matters now: two groups that could have been divided by language and culture chose to stand together, and that unity gave their cause its strength.
The Gay Rights Movement
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village in New York City, pushed back against a police raid. The confrontations that followed lasted several nights and became a turning point for the gay rights movement.
The people at the center of it were among the most marginalized in the community, including drag queens and transgender and gender non-conforming people. Two of the best-known activists of that era were Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman, and Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican transgender woman. They became close friends, took part in the Stonewall uprising, and later co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, known as STAR, to support homeless and vulnerable young people in New York.
Why it matters now: a movement that changed the country was shaped by Black and Latino people standing up together, often with the least protection, and it grew by drawing in people of every background.
Standing Together Today
The lessons of history are not only in the past. Today, immigrant families across America are living with fear and uncertainty, and in many cities, neighbors of every background are choosing to stand beside them. They bring groceries to families who are afraid to leave home. They give rides, offer free legal help, and show up at court dates to say, you are not alone. Communities and city leaders have even started funds to support families in crisis.
The same is true for our LGBTQ neighbors. More than fifty years after Stonewall, gay and transgender people still face violence in the streets and attacks on their rights and protections. Many of those hit hardest are people of color, the same people who stood at the center of that uprising. Standing together today means refusing to look away, whether the target is an immigrant family or a transgender neighbor. Dignity is not something any of us should have to earn.
Whatever people believe about immigration policy, most of us can agree on this: no one deserves to be treated with brutality, and every person deserves dignity. B.L.O.O.O.D. stands for that simple idea. When people from different backgrounds choose to stand together, as they did in Selma, in Delano, and at Stonewall, they remind us what is possible.
What These Moments Teach Us
- Change rarely comes from one group acting alone.
- Division is the easiest tool used against people who share a common struggle.
- Unity does not erase differences. It means standing together in spite of them.
That is the belief at the heart of B.L.O.O.O.D.: we are stronger when we overcome our differences together.
