To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we only see the worse, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of the presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is in itself a marvelous victory.

From You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train by Howard Zinn

Race Amity: America’s Other Tradition – A Primer is co-authored by noted race amity pioneer, author and historian, Richard W. Thomas, Ph. D. and William H. “Smitty” Smith, Ed.D., filmmaker and founding executive director of the National Center for Race Amity and award-winning documentary film producer, was recently published by Shining Light Press. Shining Light Press is the publishing arm of WHS Media Productions. Shining Light Press announced the book publication May 15th. The book, a primer, or basic presentation on the thesis of “the other tradition” as the constant parallel moral counterweight to racist behavior and practices in America’s development. The initial ground breaking thesis of “the other tradition” was introduced by Thomas in his 1996 book, Understanding Interracial Unity – A Study of U.S. Race Relations. In the new Primer, Thomas and Smith explore the premise of The Other Tradition and offer four main chapters called “cornerstones” to providing a historic view of “The Other Tradition.” Beginning with Cornerstone One, The Moral Topography for The Other Tradition in America’s Colonial and Revolutionary Periods the book continues to Cornerstones Two and Three, 19th Century Profiles in The Other Tradition, and 20th Century Profiles in The Other Tradition with Cornerstone Four, 21st Century Initiatives in The Other Tradition that present modern day models promoting access and equity.