A few days ago, organizers estimated that about five million Americans gathered in the public spaces of > 2000 cities and towns for the No Kings/Dictators/Tyrants protests.
In conversations this week with colleagues and clients from Argentina to Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, and even a suburb of Los Angeles, I mentioned the protests – and everyone was interested in hearing more because they hadn’t seen it covered in the media.
People throughout history have resisted oppression. Some are familiar, but many aren’t as well-known, especially outside their own culture. So when I sat down to write this week’s newsletter, I considered focusing on the Trưng Sisters of Vietnam, who commanded a rebellion against the Chinese in 40 A.D. Given the fact that most Americans with something to lose avoid antagonizing people in power, I figured it might be interesting to tell a story of what happens when people who are financially well off get hurt in ways that motivate them to take a stand – in this case, the sisters were wealthy landowners, and one of the sister’s husbands was killed by the Chinese.
The Trưng Sisters are national heroes in Vietnam. They led the first resistance movement against the occupying Chinese after 247 years of domination. Temples are dedicated to them and many Vietnamese people observe a national holiday every February in their memory.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Chinese accounts of this episode in history are brief and don’t mention oppression or violence against the Vietnamese.
Reflecting on the inequality of historical reporting and storytelling, I started a mental list of fights against oppression right here in America – none of which are ever really over. We fight political oppressors – if it weren’t for George III, there would be no Revolution, no Declaration of Independence. We fight racist oppressors – which is why we’ll celebrate Juneteenth in a few days. We fight sexist oppressors – for the vote, for equal pay for equal work, and for the simple right to safely coexist. We fight economic oppressors all day every day. We fight information oppressors in the form of algorithms, deepfakes, and even human editors who have been made to fear for their jobs if they upset the wrong people.
I started thinking about people in history that I didn’t learn about in school, like Granville Tailer Woods, the inventor and first black electrical engineer who held more than 60 patents and improved our public transportation, telephony, and even the phonograph. Edison took Woods to court over a patent – and lost. Makes you wonder how many other amazing people we know nothing about.
In 2025 it’s hard to imagine life without the internet. But that doesn’t mean that your story will be told, or that it will be told the way you remember it, or that anyone will notice. If you want this job done right, you have to do it yourself.
Democracy depends on discourse. Tell your story.
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What's your story? Drop me a line – I’m curious!
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Open-Source Learning is yours. Free. Get the white paper here. Use what works and customize whatever you need, however you want. I’m here to help.
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Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.
Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.
I am endlessly fascinated by the quality and quality of artful creations around us. Which is why I’m occasionally delighted to discover that something new to me is not new to other people. In this case, about 16M+ listeners have sampled Sean Rowe on Spotify, but I just heard “To Leave Something Behind” for the first time. Now I’m playing the rest of his catalogue while I write. It’s like someone sped up Leonard Cohen, seasoned with John Hiatt, and mixed in a little John Muir for content.
After watching the second season of Rogue Heroes, and thinking about Jack O’Connell’s character Paddy Mayne, I looked into the real Paddy Mayne. Even though the show isn’t intended to be factually accurate, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blair Mayne was a courageous, accomplished soldier in real life, during a time when it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, and it made me a little sad to learn that he died, of all things, from a drunk driving accident after the war. But the real reason I bring this up is that Mayne’s character in the show quotes poetry, and that got me thinking about the connection between poetry and war. Here is a sampling of what I found.
It’s not just the uniform. It’s the stories you tell.
– Bill Murray as John Winger in “Stripes”
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David Preston
Educator & Author
Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE
Header image: You never know what you'll remember from a student's Open-Source Learning journey eleven years later. Via David Preston.
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