America’s children are under attack. Not from some foreign power, but from policies, neglect, and cruelty championed by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. If children are the future, then our future is being poisoned, erased, imprisoned, and shot dead in their classrooms.
Poverty: Growing Up Hungry in the Richest Nation on Earth
Child poverty is at its highest rate in decades. Millions of kids go to bed hungry, their families crushed under the weight of inflation, low wages, and disappearing safety nets.
Instead of addressing this crisis, Trump and his allies have gutted programs like food assistance and child tax credits — lifelines that lifted millions of kids out of poverty only a few years ago.
When children grow up hungry, their brains don’t develop properly, their grades suffer, and their opportunities vanish.
That isn’t just negligence. It’s policy-driven child abuse.
Erasing Heroes: Rewriting History to Rob Kids of Role Models
Trump and his allies are on a crusade to whitewash America’s history. They ban books, censor teachers, and demonize the accomplishments of People of Color.
Why?
Because when Children of Color lose their heroes, they lose hope. (And Disney movies don’t count. Kids need real heroes they can emulate, not cartoon characters with superpowers.)
Every kid deserves to see themselves in stories of courage, brilliance, and achievement.
By erasing those stories, Trump’s America is stealing futures — not preserving them.
American Heroes of Color
African American Heroes
- Harriet Tubman — Led enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
- Frederick Douglass — Escaped slavery, became a writer, orator, and abolitionist.
- Sojourner Truth — Women’s rights and abolition leader.
- Martin Luther King Jr. — Civil rights leader, Nobel Peace Prize.
- Malcolm X — Advocate for Black empowerment and self-determination.
- Rosa Parks — Sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- Thurgood Marshall — First Black Supreme Court Justice.
- Barack Obama — First Black U.S. President.
- Maya Angelou — Poet, singer, activist, and cultural icon.
- Katherine Johnson — NASA mathematician, pivotal to space program.
- Jackie Robinson — Broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier.
- John Lewis — Civil rights leader and Congressman, “good trouble.”
Native American Heroes
- Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota) — Resisted U.S. military expansion.
- Tecumseh (Shawnee) — Tried to unite tribes against American expansion.
- Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee) — First female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
- Maria Tallchief (Osage) — America’s first major prima ballerina.
- Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree) — Musician and activist for Indigenous rights.
- Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) — First Native American Cabinet secretary (Interior).
Latino/Latina Heroes
- César Chávez — Farm worker rights activist, co-founded United Farm Workers.
- Dolores Huerta — Co-founder of UFW, civil rights and labor leader.
- Roberto Clemente — Baseball legend, humanitarian.
- Sylvia Rivera — Transgender rights activist, Stonewall veteran.
- Sonia Sotomayor — First Latina Supreme Court Justice.
- Julia de Burgos — Puerto Rican poet and civil rights activist.
- Emma Tenayuca — Mexican-American labor leader and organizer.
Asian American Heroes
- Yuri Kochiyama (Japanese-American) — Civil rights activist, allied with Malcolm X.
- Fred Korematsu — Resisted Japanese American internment; landmark Supreme Court case.
- Grace Lee Boggs — Chinese-American philosopher and activist in Detroit.
- Dalip Singh Saund — First Asian American (and Sikh) elected to Congress.
- Norman Mineta — Japanese-American politician, worked for civil liberties.
- Patsy Mink — First Asian-American woman in Congress, co-authored Title IX.
- Ellison Onizuka — First Asian-American astronaut.
- Tammy Duckworth — Thai-American U.S. Senator, Iraq War veteran, double amputee.
Middle Eastern / Arab American Heroes
- Ralph Nader (Lebanese-American) — Consumer rights activist.
- Helen Thomas (Lebanese-American) — Trailblazing White House journalist.
- Donna Shalala (Lebanese-American) — Secretary of Health and Human Services.
- Rashida Tlaib (Palestinian-American) — First Palestinian-American woman in Congress.
- Edward Said (Palestinian-American) — Literary critic and Columbia professor, pioneer of postcolonial studies (Orientalism).
- Steve Jobs (Syrian-American) — Apple co-founder, son of a Syrian immigrant.
- Paula Abdul (Syrian-American) — Entertainer, choreographer, and judge.
- Zainab Salbi (Iraqi-American) — Founded Women for Women International, helping survivors of war rebuild lives.
- Haider Ala Hamoudi (Iraqi-American) — Legal scholar, helped rebuild Iraq’s constitutional framework.
- Anousheh Ansari (Iranian-American) — First Iranian-American woman in space, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.
- Omid Kordestani (Iranian-American) — Google and Twitter executive, Silicon Valley leader.
- Firouz Naderi (Iranian-American) — NASA scientist who helped lead the Mars program.
- Ahmed Zewail (Egyptian-American) — Nobel Prize-winning chemist, father of femtochemistry.
- Rami Malek (Egyptian-American) — Actor, first Arab-American to win Best Actor Oscar (Bohemian Rhapsody).
- Yemeni-American Grocers Association — In 2017, Yemeni bodega owners in NYC led a massive strike to protest Trump’s Muslim ban.
Armenian Americans (from the Middle East, often overlooked as part of the diaspora)
- William Saroyan — Pulitzer Prize-winning author, wrote about immigrant life in America.
- Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian) — Armenian-American cultural icon.
- Andre Agassi — Tennis champion with Armenian and Assyrian heritage.
Pacific Islander Heroes
- Daniel K. Inouye (Japanese-Hawaiian) — WWII Medal of Honor recipient, long-serving Senator.
- Queen Liliʻuokalani — Last monarch of Hawaii, resisted U.S. annexation.
- Tulsi Gabbard (Samoan-Hawaiian) — First Hindu in Congress (complicated figure, but historically a first).
- Keoni Ana (John Young II) — Hawaiian statesman who defended Native rights.
Why This List Matters
Trump and the right’s “book bans” and whitewashed history curricula are erasing all of these figures. Children of color need to know their heroes exist — and white kids need to know America’s greatness was built by many cultures together.
Environmental Sabotage: Poisoning the Air, Water, and Soil
Children are far more vulnerable to pollution than adults.
Dirty air stunts their lungs. Lead in water damages their brains. Toxins in soil give them cancers they should never have to endure.
And yet, Trump dismantled EPA protections, rolled back clean water standards, and handed over environmental safeguards to the very industries that profit from poisoning us.
Oil, gas, and mining executives may cash in, but America’s children pay with their health.
(And if you’ve ever been to a Children’s Hospital devoted to cancer, you know they too often pay with their lives.)
Failing Schools: Abandoning the Next Generation
In Republican-run states, public schools consistently rank in the bottom ten percent.
Instead of fixing them, Trump and his allies push vouchers, defund teachers, and turn classrooms into political battlegrounds.
What does that mean for children?
It means overcrowded classrooms, crumbling buildings, outdated textbooks, and exhausted teachers fleeing the profession.
It means kids who never reach their potential because their leaders decided tax cuts for billionaires were more important than investing in education.
Mass Incarceration: Destroying Families at Record Levels
America imprisons more parents than any country on earth. That means millions of children growing up without a mother or father.
Instead of reforming a system that destroys families, Trump championed harsher sentences, more private prisons, and a justice system that locks up rather than lifts up.
When parents disappear into prison cells, children are left adrift, traumatized, and far more likely to end up in poverty or prison themselves.
Gun Violence: Schools Turned Into Killing Fields
No child should fear walking into their classroom. And yet, America commits wholesale murder of its children through gun violence.
School shootings are now routine. Or so the Republicans would have you believe.
Trump’s response? Endless speeches about “protecting the Second Amendment.” Not once has he put the lives of children above the profits of the gun lobby.
Have you ever heard a Republican say, “We will pray for the dead children but there’s nothing we can do. It just happens.”
I have, lots of times. And it’s fucking BULLSHIT!!!
No other country in the world has this problem. Not one. Not even the most corrupt countries, the most impoverished people, have this horrendous issue.
So why are we the only people who allow our children to be slaughtered wholesale?
Because our politicians don’t give a damn. And, apparently, neither does anyone else. If we did, we’d be in our state capitals and marching on Washington, DC, demanding this be fixed. NOW!
The truth is brutal: the party of “family values” doesn’t value families when it comes to safety, education, or opportunity.
So What Has Trump Focused On?
If not children, then what? The record is clear.
Trump has focused on:
- Shielding billionaires and corporations from taxes.
- Fueling a culture war to divide Americans against each other.
- Dismantling democracy to cling to power.
- And trying like all hell to hide from THE EPSTEIN FILES. DON’T LET UP ON THE BASTARD!
- While he quietly moves Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell – the mastermind behind the child sex-trafficking scheme – to a Club Fed luxurious prison.
Does that really sound like someone who gives a shit about your children? About anyone’s children?
Children don’t factor into that vision — unless they’re political props at rallies.
A Basic Blueprint for Saving America’s Kids
Children cannot organize themselves. They cannot lobby Congress. They cannot vote. It is up to us.
Here’s what Winning looks like:
- Unify the Movement — Families, schools, churches, charities, foundations, and progressive orgs must stop working in silos. We need a coalition — a pro-children counterpart to the Heritage Foundation.
- Build the Tools — Create networks that share resources, legal support, campaign strategies, and data. Small groups should be empowered with the kind of infrastructure conservatives already give their base. Picture The Heritage Foundation, but fighting for families rather than fighting for white nationalists, billionaires, and
- Name the Fighters — Publish and promote lists of politicians who are truly fighting for children and families — and expose those who are not.
- Fund the Future — Connect wealthy donors and giving foundations to grassroots child-focused organizations. Money must flow toward protecting children, not buying another billionaire a third yacht.
- Challenge the Gun Lobby Head-On — Unite parents, teachers, and communities to strip away the political power of the NRA and demand action on gun violence.
And I can hear you saying, “That’s great but how do I do all that stuff?”
I’m glad you asked…
Fight Back: The Wolverine Toolkit
Children are endangered. The evidence is everywhere. But rage without direction just burns itself out. To protect our kids, we need to turn anger into action — with resources, tools, and weapons we can actually use.
This is not a solo fight. It’s a resistance that needs parents, grandparents, teachers, churches, charities, foundations, and everyday Americans who refuse to sit idle while children are sacrificed. The far-right has the Heritage Foundation. We need our own Pro-Children Alliance — a movement built on unity, empathy, and relentless pressure.
Here’s where you start:
1. End Child Poverty
- Join & Support
- Children’s Defense Fund — fighting for children’s rights since 1973.
- Save the Children — domestic + global child poverty action.
- Feeding America — massive food bank network.
- Do Something Today
- Volunteer at a local food shelf or backpack program.
- Push for Child Tax Credit expansions by calling your representatives.
- Ask your church/synagogue/mosque to sponsor a “No Child Hungry” initiative.
2. Defend Children of Color From Historical Erasure
- Join & Support
- NAACP — defending civil rights.
- Zinn Education Project — teaching people’s history.
- Facing History & Ourselves — education against racism and bigotry.
- Do Something Today
- Demand diverse curricula from your school board.
- Buy and donate banned books to community libraries.
- Organize “Read-Ins” of censored works.
- Ask around your local area for opportunities to volunteer.
3. Protect Kids From Pollution & Corporate Poison
- Join & Support
- Earthjustice — “the lawyers for the environment.”
- Environmental Working Group — toxins in food/water.
- Sierra Club — grassroots clean air/water campaigns.
- Do Something Today
- Test your home tap water for lead — and demand safe water in schools.
- Press your state reps to adopt California’s higher pollution standards.
- Support renewable energy initiatives locally.
4. Fix Failing Schools
- Join & Support
- Do Something Today
- Show up at school board meetings — don’t let extremists dominate the mic.
- Volunteer as a mentor or tutor.
- Demand full funding for Title I schools in poor districts.
5. End Mass Incarceration That Destroys Families
- Join & Support
- The Sentencing Project.
- Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
- Equal Justice Initiative — Bryan Stevenson’s group.
- Do Something Today
- Support bail reform initiatives.
- Write to your governor about clemency for nonviolent offenders.
- Connect with prison literacy or family support groups in your area.
6. Stop the Gun Lobby & School Shootings
- Join & Support
- Do Something Today
- Demand universal background checks and assault weapons bans.
- Show up to town halls with the question: “What are you doing to keep kids safe in schools?”
- Pressure corporations that donate to NRA-backed politicians. “Pull the Plug on the NRA!”
7. Build a Pro-Children Counterweight to the Far Right
The Heritage Foundation (authors of Project 2025) has organized Far Right hate groups into a powerhouse of Fascism.
We need a centerpiece organization for our Children — an organizing hub that unites those of us who love our children:
- Who Must Be in the Alliance
- Parents and grandparents.
- Faith groups who actually put kids before culture wars.
- Educators, unions, and student activists.
- Foundations and wealthy individuals who care about kids’ futures.
- Tools We Need
- A Pro-Children Political Scorecard — track which politicians are fighting for kids.
- A Resource Hub — connect local orgs to funding and volunteers.
- A Rapid Response Team — amplify stories of children hurt by bad policy. (For instance, gun wounds are the number one killer of children in the US. Not cancer, not diabetes, not car accidents. Guns.)
- A Rapid Response Legal Team — ready to go to war against the NRA, MAGA, Republicans, and the Far Right.
8. How to Be a Wolverine
- Choose Your Weapon: Food bank volunteer, school board speaker, banned book defender, clean water activist, gun reform marcher — pick one.
- Find Your Pack: Don’t fight alone. Join a group. Bring a friend.
- Take One Action a Week: Call. Write. Donate. Show up.
- Stay Loud: Share stories on social media, tag leaders, demand answers.
- Remember the Mission: Children are the frontline. Protecting them means protecting the nation’s future.
Wolverine’s Rally Cry
If children are America’s future, then protecting them is protecting democracy. They are the most vulnerable and the most precious part of our nation.
We cannot leave them defenseless against poverty, pollution, ignorance, prisons, propaganda, and bullets.
Children are endangered — but they are not lost. Not if we fight back. Not if we organize. Not if we stand up together!
So the question is simple: What are you doing about it?
The far-right has power because they are organized, disciplined, and relentless. Wolverines must be the same — not just angry, but armed with action.
And how do we win?
WE DON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER!
Especially from smarmy politicians who tell you they just can’t get that passed through Congress.
Remind them that:
- YOU are organized.
- YOU have friends.
- And YOU will make sure they never get elected to anything again.
So, they better DO SOMETHING!
The sanctity of children demands nothing less.
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