Ripples of Rebels

What if one neighborhood held the entire origin story of American corruption, immigration, labor rights, and music? This week, we’re talking about Five Points — the most infamous neighborhood in 19th-century New York City, and arguably the most consequential few acres in American history. We start before the streets were even laid, with the Lenape people of Mannahatta and the freshwater Collect Po...

We’ve done it before. Multiple times. During World War II, everyday people — with no farming background, no land grants, no government subsidies — grew 40% of all the fresh vegetables eaten in the United States. They did it in backyards, on rooftops, in window boxes, in vacant lots. They did it because the system they relied on couldn’t hold them, and they decided to hold themselves instead. So wh...

In 1884, a Hunkpapa Lakota chief who had defeated the United States Army sat in a Minnesota audience and watched a five-foot-tall Ohio woman shoot a playing card out of the air from thirty feet away. He sent sixty-five dollars to her hotel room just to have his photograph taken with her. When they met, he gave her a Lakota name — Watanya Cicilla, Little Sure Shot — and eventually adopted her as hi...

In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II breached the walls of Constantinople and ended the Eastern Roman Empire after 1,123 years. But the story that gets skipped in most history classes is what happened next — and what had been quietly happening for decades before. Byzantine scholars, philosophers, and intellectuals fled west carrying something priceless: original Greek manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle,...

In the summer of 1932, over 43,000 World War I veterans and their families descended on Washington, D.C., demanding early payment of service bonuses they’d been promised — and were met with tear gas, bayonets, and burning camps ordered by their own government. The Bonus Army encampment didn’t end with negotiations or compassion. It ended when General Douglas MacArthur drove tanks and cavalry throu...

From a Revolutionary War soldier forced to fight disguised as a man, to the first woman Marine in 1918, to modern combat veterans and political “Hell Cats” running for office, this episode explores how women challenged the status quo—and how those quiet rebellions still shape U.S. military policy, culture, and politics today. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new post...

It’s Aquarius season, and there’s no better way to celebrate than highlighting an incredible air sign, Huey P. Newton. Considering current events, it’s important more than ever to explore and refresh the strategy of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense — from Huey P. Newton’s intellectual roots and the Party’s legal self-defense philosophy to their groundbreaking community survival programs th...

In 1735, a New York printer was jailed for publishing the truth. John Peter Zenger’s trial is often reduced to a footnote in American history, but it was a direct confrontation with a question that still haunts modern democracy: Who decides what the public is allowed to know? So we revisit the trial of John Peter Zenger and the revolutionary defense mounted by Andrew Hamilton, who argued that “he...

We’ve talked on other episodes about having found hoods & robes in moving trucks that past roommates and I have rented. Now, we are digging deeper into why that would happen in a “liberal” state out West. Oregon likes to brand itself as progressive, green, and forward-thinking—but its past tells a different story. In this episode, we dive into the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon during the 1920...

BONUS EPISODE FOR THANKSGIVING TRAVELS BABYYY! Of course it’s about Indigenous History, what else did you think I’d do it over? 💅🏼 In this episode of Ripples of Rebels , we dive into the extraordinary life of Jackson Sundown , the legendary Nez Perce horseman whose talent, defiance, and cultural pride reshaped the world of rodeo. Born into a nation fighting for survival after the Nez Perce War o...

This episode of Ripples of Rebels examines the intersecting histories of Harvey Milk , one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and Gilbert Baker , the artist and activist who created the modern Rainbow Pride Flag . Their lives—shaped by military service, state surveillance, and the political climate of 20th-century America—offer a clear window into the evolution of LGBT...

Before America was even a nation, a small wooden classroom in Boston ignited a revolution — not of muskets, but of minds. In this episode of Ripples of Rebels , we trace the story of public education in the United States from its roots in Boston Latin School (1635) to the modern-day attacks on truth, teachers, and democracy itself. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive ne...

In 1534, a group of radical believers seized control of the German city of Münster—declaring it the New Jerusalem and promising paradise on earth. What followed was a nightmare of prophecy, starvation, and power gone mad. Like Mad King type of mad. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This week o...

In the shadow of the Byzantine Empire’s glittering power, a quiet revolution was unfolding in the Balkans. At its heart was Saint Naum of Ohrid — a scholar, healer, and monk whose life helped ignite the literacy and spiritual awakening of the Slavic world. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thi...

What does a song born in the rice paddies of northern Italy that brought down Mussolini have to do with political extremism in the United States? In this episode, we follow the journey of Bella Ciao — its origins among the mondine , its rise with WWII partisans fighting fascism, and its continued life as protest anthem around the world. Ripples of Rebels is a reader-supported publication. To recei...

You all asked, and I am attempting to deliver us from evil. The evil that is misinformation and Zionist propaganda about the colonization of Palestine. The snippets I read online that upset a lot of Zionists, were all covered in this first part of the episode— there is still about 10 pages left to read. If you’d like to read along on the online archived version, or read ahead for yourself, you can...

Warsaw, 1944. An eight-year-old girl named Róża Maria Goździewska stands in a makeshift hospital cellar, a Red Cross armband sliding down her thin arm. Around her lie wounded fighters of the Warsaw Uprising. She carries water, wipes foreheads, whispers encouragement. She is remembered now as the youngest nurse in the Polish Resistance. Her image is haunting—and it reminds us that the Polish Resist...

Yugoslavia didn’t just fall apart overnight—it was torn apart by rising nationalism, propaganda, and calculated violence. In this Ripples of Rebels episode, we look at the unraveling of a country once held together by diversity, and how that collapse led to the Bosnian Wars, the siege of Sarajevo, and the genocide in Srebrenica. We break down who Ratko Mladić was, now 83 yrs old, earned the name “...

Meet the titans who shaped America’s wealth—and crushed its workers. This episode of Ripples of Rebels dives into the dark legacies of Robber Barons John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan. From labor exploitation and violent union crackdowns to monopolies that stifled competition and democracy, we trace their rise to power and the real human costs of their empires. We discuss the Lu...

They walked into history with books in hand and bravery in their bones. In 1957, nine Black teenagers—known today as the Little Rock Nine —stepped into Little Rock Central High School and the heart of a national crisis. This episode unpacks their story: a showdown between federal power and state resistance, between white supremacy and nine young students who refused to back down. But this isn’t ju...

What does resistance really look like? This is the true story of teenage girls who joined the Dutch Resistance during WWII and used strategy, seduction, and sabotage to fight fascism—risking everything to save lives and destroy oppression from the inside out. You’ll meet: • Freddie Oversteegen – a 14-year-old girl who scouted Nazi targets by bicycle and pulled the trigger when she had to. • Truus...

Learn how apartheid came to define South Africa, the origins of white supremacy and land dispossession through laws like the 1913 Native Land Act , and the role of major resistance movements like the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the tragic Sharpeville Massacre . Additionally, we dig into how Elon Musks family made their fortune off of the oppression of Black South Africans during the apartheid regim...

Picture a boy no older than ten, bent over in the rows of a lettuce field in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The sun hasn’t yet crested the horizon, but César Chávez is already at work—hands blistered, his small frame weighed down by a burlap sack filled with crops he’ll never afford to eat. The Great Depression didn’t just steal jobs; it shattered families. When César’s parents lost their Arizon...

As First Lady, humanitarian, and civil rights advocate, Eleanor redefined the role of women in American politics and society. We explore her progressive yet controversial positions, her influence on President Franklin D. Roosevelt despite his infidelities, and her lifelong commitment to justice and human rights. Learn why Eleanor Roosevelt is often excluded from mainstream feminist history, even t...

Today we confront the haunting legacies of the Magdalene Laundries of the Catholic Church and their chilling influence on the Native American boarding school system , the Sixties Scoop , and the U.S. child welfare and adoption industries . With raw survivor testimony, historical records, and literary excerpts from Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog, we expose the brutal realities endured by Indigenous...