Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy

Each November is designated as Native American Heritage Month and is a time to honor and celebrate diverse Native American cultures and values. The month gives us an opportunity provide education about the vast contributions Native Peoples have made, and provide opportunities to learn more about both historical and ongoing challenges that affect Native Peoples today. During this Native American Heritage Month, we want to introduce you to the concept of giving the Indigenous way.

POGO was co-founded in 1981 by trailblazer and Pentagon whistleblower, Ernie Fitzgerald who understood the significance of people powered accountability. Our investigations into waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse of power allow us to find deficiencies in federal government policies, programs, and projects. Much of our focus is where government and powerful private interests intersect, a nexus where corruption and abuse of power can thrive if oversight isn’t strong.

HISTORY. Race Forward was founded by Gary Delgado as the Applied Research Center (ARC) in 1981. In 1998, it began publishing the award-winning Colorlines magazine, whose goal was to popularize racial justice narratives and center the people of color who fought for them. ARC changed its name to Race Forward in 2013. In 2017, it merged with the Center for Social Inclusion, which had been founded in 2001 by Maya Wiley and Jocelyn Sargent and whose flagship operation was the Government Alliance for Race and Equity.

When he was a young man, Harold was charged with a burglary offense and given deferred adjudication (DA), a special type of probation that allows a charge to be removed from a criminal record. Although Harold successfully completed the DA terms, the arrest remained on his record because removal is not automatic, but requires an additional legal step that most people don’t know how to do on their own. So despite an otherwise clean criminal record, Harold was haunted by that charge every time he sought employment or tried to rent an apartment.

Since its founding in 1990, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been the leading nonprofit on the frontlines of fighting for digital freedoms, including free expression, privacy, innovation, and more.