INTERACTIVE ROOTS

02/11/2026

Food brings us together, wherever we call home. Behind the meals we share are farmers whose care and hard work help keep our communities nourished. 🌱

With the U.S. midterm elections tomorrow, we’re sharing Farm Aids “Vote for Farmers” guide for our American friends and neighbors. Take a moment to learn about the issues facing family farmers and how your vote can support their future.

Let’s care for the people who help feed us.

https://www.farmaid.org/take-action/vote-for-farmers/

Our goal is to put people in power who will pass policies that create the systems we want to see, but this process starts long before election day.

30/10/2026

28/10/2026

Today, we honor Lady Liberty and the generations who arrived in her harbor seeking freedom, opportunity, and the chance to build a new life.

Dedicated on October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty has stood in New York Harbor for 140 years. A gift from the people of France, her full name is “Liberty Enlightening the World.”

Her torch represents enlightenment. Broken shackles at her feet symbolize freedom from enslavement. The tablet in her arm bears July 4, 1776, the date of the Declaration of Independence.

The words of welcome associated with her came from Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet from New York who worked with Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe.

In 1883, Lazarus wrote the poem “The New Colossus” to help raise money for the statue’s pedestal. She imagined Liberty as the “Mother of Exiles”:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The poem was placed on a plaque inside the pedestal in 1903, years after Lazarus’s death.

Generations carried their homelands with them—in their cultures, languages, stories, and traditions—as they built new lives and made new homes in America. They raised families, opened businesses, formed communities, and helped shape the country we share.

Beginning again did not mean forgetting where they came from. For many, home would always hold more than one meaning.

That history matters today. Climate disasters, damaged livelihoods, and economic hardship push families to consider where they can safely live and work. Leaving can mean separation from loved ones and the place where your history is understood.

For many who look toward America, the hope remains: an opportunity to contribute, a secure future for their children, and the freedom to begin a new chapter.

To us, Lady Liberty is a symbolic matriarch. Her light still shines in our harbor as a beacon of hope—our North Star in uncertain times, when we have lost our way as a nation.

She continues to stand with us, reminding us of the people who came before and the humanity we share with those arriving today.

We honor her through how we treat our neighbors, defend human and civil rights, and choose leaders who serve people honestly.

As the November 3 midterm elections in approach in America, let us carry her promise of welcome forward.

28/10/2026

On October 27, 1904, after a day of ceremonies and celebration, New York City's subway opened to the public with "indescribable scenes of crowding and confusion," according to reports in the New York Times.

More than 100,000 people dressed in their finest clothes went underground that night to "do the subway."

The subway was so successful in reducing street level traffic and redistributing the population that just three years later, plans to expand it were underway. Over the next three decades, construction continued at full pace — and has never completely stopped.

📸: The City Hall station of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Lexington Avenue Line, part of the first underground line of the subway that opened on October 27, 1904 (Library of Congress)

28/10/2026

In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir embarked on a three-day wilderness trip in Yosemite National Park. They camped the first night at the Mariposa Grove under the Grizzly Giant. The second night was spent near Sentinel Dome during a snowstorm. The third night was at the edge Bridalveil Meadow in Yosemite Valley. After the trip, Roosevelt said of Yosemite, "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias...our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their Children's children forever..."

Born on October 27, 1858, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, left a lasting mark on America’s public lands. During his presidency, he established five national parks, designated 18 national monuments, created 51 federal bird reservations, and protected approximately 230 million acres of public land for future generations.

Today, you can celebrate his birthday by visiting a national park site for free! Several National Park Service sites are dedicated to Roosevelt and his legacy, including:

🐎 Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York
🏡 Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, New York
🌾 Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
🏛️ Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, New York
🌳 Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.
⛰️ Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota

Whether you explore a historic home, walk a trail, or take in a landscape Roosevelt helped inspire generations to protect, there’s no better way to celebrate his birthday than by getting out and discovering your public lands.

Image: President Roosevelt's choicest recreation - amid nature's rugged grandeur on Glacier Point, Yosemite. 1903. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

28/10/2026

Florence is her name.

Florence Owens Thompson, photographed with her children by Dorothea Lange in 1936. “Migrant Mother” captures a profound time in U.S. history, when the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl left countless families searching for work, stability, and a safe place to call home.

The Great Depression began in 1929 and lasted into the early 1940s in the United States. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s brought drought, dust storms, and damaged farmland, deepening the hardship.

Lange was working for the federal Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that assisted struggling families and employed photographers to document rural poverty.

Florence, a Cherokee mother who had moved to California before the Dust Bowl, was traveling with her family in search of agricultural work when their car broke down near Nipomo.

It was a brief crossing of two women’s lives: one working for the government as a photographer, documenting the hardship around her; the other a mother searching for stability and a better life for her children. Florence’s resilience helped her family endure, but they deserved more than survival—a safe place to call home and the opportunity to thrive.

But remembering is not enough. What happened to Florence and countless others should inform what we prevent today. We have the knowledge and resources to protect families from being pushed into desperation. The question is whether our leaders will use them.

Climate disasters continue to threaten American homes and livelihoods. At the same time, the cost of living and access to healthcare, education, affordable housing, and work are putting a secure future beyond too many families’ reach. These are the conditions that determine whether people can remain in their homes, provide for their children, and live beyond survival.

We believe this administration and elected officials are failing to uphold their oath to the U.S. Constitution. The erosion of hard-won human and civil rights risks taking us back to times that were never great for everyone.

We are at a crossroads for our democracy. The November 3, 2026 U.S. midterm elections are an opportunity to vote for candidates who actually serve hardworking people—beyond political agendas, lies, and corruption. Candidates who protect our rights and make decisions that improve everyday lives.

Look at their records. Ask whose interests they serve. Demand honesty and accountability, regardless of party.

Florence’s resilience deserves recognition. Her hardship should never become a standard we accept for another generation.

Vote for our children, our communities, and our shared future. Then hold those we elect accountable.

Photo: Dorothea Lange, “Migrant Mother,” Nipomo, California, March 1936. The Library of Congress.

28/10/2026

So much has changed since Ben Folds sang “Dear Theodosia” at the Kennedy Center in 2018. Listening now, it hits differently these days.

In Hamilton, Aaron Burr sings to his newborn daughter, Theodosia, and Alexander Hamilton sings to his son, Philip. Two men who will become bitter rivals share the same love and hope as new fathers. Both know what it means to grow up without a father around, and both promise to be there for their children—even knowing they’ll make mistakes.

Their children are growing up alongside a new nation, so building its future is deeply personal. It’s about the world their kids will inherit.

That’s what stays with us: how love changes our priorities, how much showing up matters, and the responsibility we share to leave the next generation a better world.

The world has changed so much, and the responsibility to build a better future for our children feels more urgent than ever.

Hamilton was created by 2018 KennedyCenter Honorees Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Alex Lacamoire , and Andy Blankenbuehler.

This performance was part of the National Symphony Orchestra event "DECLASSIFIED: Ben Folds Presents Regina Spektor & Caleb Teicher." It was filmed live in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on November 2, 2018.

American history asks us to learn from those who came before us—their courage, their mistakes, and their struggles to build a better future. What we do with those lessons will shape the world our children inherit.

Democracy is calling on us—in the U.S. and around the world—and every vote counts. If you’re in the U.S., make your voice heard for our children, who are too young to vote but are counting on us. Vote for the world they will inherit. Vote for our shared future.

Vote early or this November, 3rd 2026.

Regina Spektor and Ben Folds perform "Dear Theodosia" from the ...

02/08/2026

“Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. There was no one there.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. included this familiar motto in his sermon “Antidotes for Fear,” later published in Strength to Love.

King wrote from lived experience. During a difficult night amid the Montgomery Bus Boycott, an elderly member of his congregation named Mother Pollard recognized that something was weighing on him. She assured him that God would take care of him—even if no one else stood with him.

King carried her words through the threats, sorrow and uncertainty that followed. For him, faith was not pretending that danger or hardship didn’t exist. It was the spiritual strength that transformed despair into hope and made it possible to keep moving forward.

Fear may knock. But we get to decide what answers the door.

—An old familiar motto, quoted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Strength to Love

09/07/2026

More Perfect Union steps in with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take on AI data centers destroying American communities.

"We brought AOC to deep red Georgia to talk data centers. What we found: a data center rebellion, with people willing to radically shift their politics. One conservative voter said: “If there’s a chance that anything can be done, I feel like she’s gonna be the one to do it.”

Seems like we more AOC's representing the care and interests of Americans everywhere. If we are not seeing that, we the people have the right to change a non-working gov't to one that does serve Americans fully.

We brought AOC to deep red Georgia to talk data centers.We found ...

08/07/2026

in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to the public for the first time.

Just four days after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, thousands of Philadelphians gathered in the State House Yard (today's Independence Square) to hear Colonel John Nixon proclaim the document. Although the Declaration had already been printed in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 6, many people had not yet seen a copy. Public readings like this helped spread the news of independence quickly throughout the city and beyond.

The reading marked the beginning of a day of celebration. Contemporary accounts describe "many thousand spectators" gathered to witness the moment. Continental battalions paraded through the streets and performed a feu de joie, which is a ceremonial rapid-fire gun salute reserved for important occasions. In a letter to a friend, John Adams recalled "The Bells rung all Day, and almost all night. Even the Chimers, Chimed away."

On the same day, elections for Pennsylvania's Constitutional Convention also took place in Philadelphia. One of the winners, Timothy Matlack, would engross the formal copy of the Declaration of Independence just weeks later.

#1776