Can Women ‘Turn Protest Into Power’?

L.A.’s Women Are Rising, but Too Many Communities Are Being Left Behind

Last month, Kamala Harris made U.S. history, becoming the first woman to be elected vice president. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the November elections resulted in the first all-women Board of Supervisors. While women today are assuming unprecedented positions of power, at the same time, there are many battles left to fight. What are those battles, and how can they be won? This was the question at the heart of “What Are Today’s L.A. Women Fighting For?,” part of the Zócalo/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County When Women Vote series.

After …

by Sarah Rothbard | December 4, 2020

The Women Blowing Up Ethiopia’s Film Industry

Successful Female Writers, Directors, and Producers Set the Nation Apart From Hollywood, Bollywood, and the Rest of World Cinema

by Steven W. Thomas | September 11, 2020

Among the many stories about Ethiopia’s long, multifaceted past and politically complicated present, an extraordinary transformation that has received less media attention is the dramatic leap forward in its movie …

The Unlikely Catholic Activist Who Believed in Civil Disobedience ‘Animated by Love’

Dorothy Day’s Legacy Continues to This Day Through Followers Like Martin Gugino, the 75-Year-Old Protestor Shoved by Buffalo Police

by John Loughery | June 17, 2020

On June 5, 2020, in the midst of a nonviolent Black Lives Matter protest in Buffalo, New York, 75-year-old Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist, approached a line of riot …

The Legendary New York Saloonkeeper Who Was the Real-Life Inspiration for Star Trek’s Guinan | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Legendary Saloonkeeper Who Was the Real-Life Inspiration for Star Trek’s Guinan

Whoopi Goldberg’s Character Was Based on Texas Guinan, a Larger-Than-Life Texas Girl Turned Power Player in Prohibition-Era New York

by Carol Stabile | April 9, 2020

In an emotional scene, earlier this year actor Patrick Stewart stopped by “The View” to ask co-host Whoopi Goldberg to join the cast of “Star Trek: Picard” for its second …

How Cesarean Births Became a ‘Global Epidemic’

Reliance on New Obstetric Technology and Lawsuit-Averse Doctors Made Traditional Birth Seem More Risky Than C-Sections

by Jacqueline H. Wolf | December 3, 2018

Zócalo’s editors are diving into our archives and throwing it back to some of our favorite pieces. This week: We’re resharing medical historian Jacqueline …

The Voodoo Priestess Whose Celebrity Foretold America’s Future

Marie Laveau, the Self-Invented New Orleans Prophetess, Blurred the Sacred and Profane While Presiding Over a Multiracial Following

by Adrian Shirk | November 28, 2018

Any tourist who rolls into New Orleans’s French Quarter eventually finds themselves standing before a Bourbon Street botanica called Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo. It’s a small shop, and …

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