Stories of Resistance

ICE agents are detaining thousands of people a day from communities across the country. But people are resisting. And it’s having an impact. Millions have protested in recent weeks, from the #NoKings rally to demonstrations in front of immigration detention centers, and protests against ICE in their communities. Neighbors in one Chicago suburb pushed back by yelling and honking car horns when ICE agents descended on their community. Elsewhere they’ve handed out thousands of whistles to neighbors at risk. And people are lifting up their cell phone cameras and their voices, and putting their bodies on the line to f...

On October 18, 2019, protests erupted in Santiago, Chile, over a hike in the cost of public transportation. But the demonstrations quickly grew into more than that. Those in the streets demanded change—real change. They demanded more rights. They demanded a new Constitution.

Police cracked down with impunity. Videos went viral of riot police beating people in the streets. Chemical water guns. Shooting rubber bullets at point blank range. The number of the dead and wounded skyrocketed.

Throughout the protests, which would ripple on for almost 6 months, Chilean state security forces would cause more than 400 eye injuries to...

It was once called Columbus Day, and it still is in many parts. A day to celebrate the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who supposedly “discovered” America. But America was there long before Columbus came. And so were millions of people up and down the continent. Experts estimate that there were anywhere from 60–90 million people in the Americas at the time. Possibly even more people in the Americas than in Europe at the time. 

But disease and successive wars by waves of invading Europeans decimated the local Indigenous populations. Over the next century, roughly 90% of Indigenous peoples in the Western...

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in recent days. They've marched in dozens of cities. They're demanding respect and safety for the flotilla passengers kidnapped and detained by Israeli forces. They're demanding an end to the violence in Gaza and an end to their countries’ complicity in the genocide in Palestine. 

BIG NEWS! This podcast is a finalist for this year’s Signal Awards for best history podcast. It's a huge honor just to get this far. And you can help us win. Your vote can make a difference. Anyone can vote. Here’s the link: https...

In Ecuador, the country's largest Indigenous movement has been leading mass protests in the streets for nearly two weeks against President Daniel Noboa’s lifting of diesel subsidies. Gas prices have spiked. They say it will impact the price of food.

They’re calling their protests an “indefinite national strike.” The country is now on fire. They have faced repression. But they have vowed to continue in the streets, demanding justice. Demanding their rights. Standing in defense of their communities, their lives, and their future.

This is Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each...

Harriet Tubman is an icon for freedom. She first fled slavery with two brothers on September 17, 1849. By the following year, she was returning to save others. She traveled by night, from safe house to safe house, supported by a network of abolitionists known as the Underground Railroad. Walking north to Pennsylvania—a free state. She would make 13 trips back and forth throughout the 1850s and early 1860s. She rescued roughly 70 people from enslavement. But she didn’t stop there.
This is episode 68 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each week, we’ll bring yo...

Brazilian educator Paulo Freire inspired and he resisted. He was imprisoned and exiled during the Brazilian dictatorship and he carried his teachings around the world. He believed literacy and learning could be tools to empower. He helped people learn to read and write, but also understand their place of oppression and rise above it.

He wrote, “Education doesn’t transform the world. Education changes people. People transform the world.”

This is episode 67 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times...

High school students are still marching in Argentina to remember the disappeared—kids like them who were kidnapped, detained, tortured and disappeared nearly a half century ago during the country’s military dictatorship. Kidnapped during an operation known as the Night of the Pencils—carried out on September 16, 1976. 

This is episode 66 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

You can check out Michael's exclusive pictures of this student march here, on his Patreon.
Michael's Panamerican Dispatch podcast epi...

On September 11, 1973, tanks rumbled over the streets of Santiago, Chile. Planes bombed La Moneda, the presidential palace, as US-backed General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected President Salvador Allende. It was a dark, dark moment in Chile’s history. Pinochet would unleash a bloody regime that would grip power until 1990. During his rule, thousands were rounded up, detained, tortured, and executed.

But there was resistance.

In this special bonus episode of Stories of Resistance, we showcase four different vignettes of people standing up to the evil in which Pinochet enveloped the country in the early 1970s, and...

It’s past midnight on September 6, 1971. 

Across the prison, dozens of men slip out of their beds. Bricks slide out from the walls of their cells. Bodies slip out silently. They move into a tunnel that has been chiseled and dug slowly and silently for eight months, and they creep one by one underneath the prison.

It is the stuff of movies. Or of legends. Or of cartoons. The only sound is the ruffle of their prison uniforms and the occasional scrape of knees and hands on the ground.

A total of 111 men escape fro...

In August 1791, slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue revolted, rising up by the thousands. Within ten days they've taken over the whole northern province. By the following year, they controlled a third of the colony. It was the spark that would ignite the Haitian revolution — a 13-year-long endeavour. Independence would finally come on January 1, 1804. But they would have to defeat three European countries to get there.

This is episode 64 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

Please c...

The 1980s were a time of war El Salvador. The government openly attacked its citizens. Repression. Murder. Massacres.

Radio Venceremos broadcasted twice a day. And it was a voice of truth. A voice of reason. A voice of resistance amid the violence and the government repression and the military bloodshed. They spoke truth to power. They offered hope to the masses—the people praying for change. Praying that El Salvador could be different. That one day they would not have to live in fear.

This is episode 63 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real...

It is not a pretty bridge. Four lanes of busy traffic rush across Puente Bulnes during most hours. To the North, it buttresses against two overpasses that lead to a bustling highway. Below it, run the milky grey waters of the Mapocho River, after passing through downtown Santiago, Chile. 

50 years ago, in another time, this bridge was a favorite execution site for the military and police of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Today, Aquiles Cordova will not let it be forgotten—ever.

This is episode 62 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News...

There is a place, tucked into the mountains and hills near the border between the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Puebla, where local campesinos continue to practice an ancestral tradition. They are salt farmers. And they are the last of their kind. But they are holding on. Holding on to the past in the present. Holding on to their tradition, culture and livelihood. Resisting amid the ancient salt pools in the cactus-studded hills of Mexico.

This is episode 61 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast produced by The Real News. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like...

In the land of the Condor, near the base of the tallest mountain in the Western hemisphere, an Incan community lived. The people hunted, along the sheer hillsides, they farmed, they collected water from the river gushing from snowmelt. They had children, built families, and passed on traditions to generations of descendants.

The land was cold, inhospitable, but their village grew and their community thrived at the far Southern reaches of the vast Incan empire, in present-day Argentina. Today, centuries have passed, the people are gone, but the stones and dirt that made their homes remain. The stories...

On the Northeastern Brazilian coast, in the region of Alcântara, Maranhão, there are dozens of traditional villages of Black communities. Their families have lived here for generations — farming and fishing. They are known as quilombos. These villages were founded by their ancestors, who were either freed or who escaped enslavement on the plantations of Brazil.

There are thousands of quilombos across Brazil. But only a small number have the titles to their lands. And many are under threat from development projects, resource extraction, Big Ag, and real estate. This was the story in Alcântara, where these...

On July 17, 1936, the Nazi-backed Spanish General Federico Franco led an armed rebellion against the Spanish government. It began a bloody civil war that would last for years. 

Thousands of people left their homes and traveled to Spain to stand up and defend its democratically elected government against Franco and fascism. Roughly 35,000 people from more than 50 countries would join the Spanish International Brigade. Of those internacionalistas, roughly 3,000 men and women came from the United States and volunteered to fight. They founded the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. 

This is episode 58 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real...

Thousands on the streets of Brazil, Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue packed, angry and protesting US President Donald Trump and his imposition of 50% tariffs on Brazilian products. Trump’s new tariffs on Brazil are in response to the country’s trial against Trump ally, former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. 

Bolsonaro is accused of leading a “criminal organization” that looked to stop his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from assuming the presidency after he won the 2022 elections. The Brazilian courts will decide. Trump has other plans. But Brazilian leaders say they won’t back down. 

“If there's one t...

There are less than a hundred members of the Karipuna tribe. They live on their land in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. Their territory is demarcated, which means that it’s legally theirs.But many outsiders don’t care. Land invaders have been pushing in, hauling off hardwood and big trees and carving out pieces of their land, and dividing them up to sell.

The Karipuna are resisting.

This is episode 56 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action progra...

Over the last two and a half centuries people in the US have used July 4 to make their stand against injustice, inequality, and oppression, and demand their rights. From an infamous speech by Frederick Douglass to women suffragists demanding the right to vote, civil rights protests, and a historic farm workers’ march, today we look at moments of July 4 resistance.

This is episode 55 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like t...

Chile’s Indigenous Mapuche people have played their own version of field hockey for countless generations. Roughly 2 million Mapuche Indigenous people live across Chile and Argentina. Many have moved from their ancestral lands to the city. But they have not forgotten their past. They are using their ancestral sport, palín, to breathe life into their culture and traditions. Using their sport as a type of resistance. 

This is episode 54 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll...

Stonewall. They say it was the spark that set the fire ablaze. The start of the modern LGBTQ movement. Protests and riots that lasted for days in defense of gay rights. And from it, came gay pride parades, gay pride months, days, and celebrations far from the United States, in cities around the world. 

This is episode 53 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
...

On June 28, 2009, Honduras exploded and the people took to the streets after the president was overthrown in a coup. One radio show followed them, reported from the protests, and became the voice of the resistance: Felix Molina’s Resistencia—Resistance.

This is episode 52 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. <...

The year is 1968. Summertime. Washington, DC. And covering the National Mall are endless rows of shacks built by hundreds of poor families from across the United States. It’s called Resurrection City, and they have come to Washington to demand an end to poverty and a new economic bill of rights… for the poor.

This was Martin Luther King Jr’s dream. The Poor People’s Campaign is what he’d been working for in the months before he was killed in April 1968. 

The city would last for six weeks. It would inspire thousands. Its legacy would last...

For hundreds of years, the Spanish banned the Incan Festival of the Sun—the Andean New Year. But since the middle of the 20th century, Inti Raymi has been back. Today, communities, cities, towns and even universities hold Inti Raymi celebrations. They make offerings, light fires and incense. They say prayers to Pachamama and Inti, the sun. They sing and dance. 

And it’s not just a celebration. It is an act of resistance.

This is episode 50 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global...

If you walk down the street in Paraguay, you will hear people speaking Spanish, the official language of most of the countries of Latin America. But, particularly if you are in the countryside, you will also hear something else: Guaraní.

It’s one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in the Americas; a mother tongue of roughly six and half million people. In particular, in Paraguay.

There, most Paraguayans speak Guaraní or a mixture of Guaraní and Spanish, regardless of whether or not they are Indigenous Guaraní, mestizo, or white. When Paraguay was invaded in the mid-1...

Q’eswachaka is the last Incan rope bridge. It’s located down in a valley in the Andes mountains of Peru. And in early June, the residents of four Quechua communities hold a three-day-long festival, where they rebuild the bridge from scratch.

This is not just a task to be done, but an ancestral ceremony. A means of holding on to their traditions and the story—resisting modernity and the passage of time, by preserving this piece of their history and their culture.

The bridge itself is a symbol of the community’s connection to their past, to...

Bruce Springsteen has never shied away from expressing his political views. And he’s not gonna back down now.

“In my home, the America I love. The America I’ve written about. That has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration,” he told a crowd at a concert in Europe, in May. Donald Trump responded over Truth Social, calling him a “pushy, obnoxious jerk” and a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker.”

In dark times, music and song gives us hope. Bruce Springsteen, like Pet...

You might think that Ernesto “Che” Guevara's resistance came with the Cuban revolution. When he sailed on the yacht known as the Granma, picked up arms, fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra, and liberated the island of Cuba. Or when he denounced US intervention at the United Nations, or when he helped to lead Cuba and make it self-sufficient, despite the US embargo that still exists today. Or when he left it all behind to try and spark a revolution in Bolivia.

But Ernesto Guevara's resistance began long before all of that. It began when he trav...

Independent journalists say they are under threat in El Salvador. At least 15 journalists have fled the country in recent weeks. Roughly a dozen more are in hiding out of fear for their safety.

“There's an atmosphere of fear, of anxiety. Of insecurity,” says Oscar Orellana, the head of the community media association ARPAS.

But many continue to report. They continue to denounce the unjust detention of human rights
defenders. They continue to tell the stories that need to be told. Resisting… despite everything.

This is episode 45 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The R...

Protesters have taken to the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco. They’re protesting the detention and arrest of thousands of immigrants by Donald Trump’s immigration officials. 

Protests have carried on for days. They’ve shut down highways. They've shouted, “No.” Trump has responded, calling in the national guard, despite objections from local state officials. It’s the first time a president has unilaterally called in the national guard in 60 years. 

California governor Gavin Newsom says he’s suing Trump for illegally deploying federal troops and “flaming the fires.” 

People have promised to resist. More prote...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, his spoke novels. He was Steinbeck, Tolstoy, and Tolkien, all in one. His images capture the spirit of the poor and working classes. And they grip the viewer. Refusing to let your eyes peal from the picture before you. Pictures in black and white. Pictures that seem to have been painted by brush strokes, but which are as real as the camera equipment he used.

Sebastião Salgado was an artist. And he was a documentarian. Capturing the plight of the downtrodden, but also their soul. Their beauty.

S...

There is a boat sailing to Gaza right now. It carries aid for the people of Palestine. And it is called the Freedom Flotilla. It is a sign of solidarity. A sign of international resistance against Israel's war on the people of Palestine. Against the death, and destruction, and pain. Against the genocide.

The goal is to break Israel's siege of Gaza. And deliver much needed humanitarian aid.

The Freedom Flotilla left Sicily on June 1. It’s a seven-day voyage. 

If all goes as planned, it will arrive in Gaza this weekend.

This i...

The Chinchorro mummies are considered the oldest mummies in the world. Thousands of years older than the Egyptian mummies. And these were not pharaohs. They were everyday folks looking to hold on to what was most dear to them: The people they loved.

An embrace from the past that would last for thousands upon thousands of years. That would last until today. And, hopefully, far into the future.

This is episode 41 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action pr...

Chile’s Club Deportivo Palestino is a soccer team founded more than a century ago by Palestinian immigrants in Santiago, Chile. Chile is home to the largest Palestinian community outside of the Middle East: half a million people.

The team wears the country’s colors: white, green and red. In the stands, fans wear them too, as well as keffiyehs, the black-and-white scarves that represent Palestinian identity and resistance. Their slogan is: “More than a team, it is an entire people.”

The team, the players, and the fans have remained outspoken in defense of Palestine. And outspoke...

Parán is a small Indigenous community in the hills of Huaura, in central Peru. They are peach farmers. Their orchards line the mountainside. The same mountain where a new Canadian mine, known as Invicta, was beginning to operate. They feared for their future and that the mine would contaminate their precious springs, their only source of fresh water for their town and their peach trees.

In 2018, they began an around-the-clock roadblock against a new mine. When they were attacked by armed thugs, they held a community meeting and the entire village—all adult men and women—agreed to pa...

For nearly 20 years, the women of Calama traveled into the desert each day to search for their loved ones — their husbands and partners who were ripped from them, detained, tortured, executed, and disappeared in the weeks following Chile’s US-backed 1973 coup d’état.

Monday through Sunday, sun-up to sundown, they scoured the harsh desert earth with strainers and rakes, searching and hoping.

And finally, in 1990, on the edge of a hillside overlooking the expansive Atacama desert, the women found fragments of bones and pieces of teeth. This was the location their loved ones had laid buried for 17 y...

On May 22. 2006, teachers struck across the Mexican state of Oaxaca against dismal resources for schools, kids, and themselves. They were met with widespread repression. It would kick off months of protests that would unexpectedly turn Oaxaca into ground zero for one of the most radical movements Mexico has seen in the 21st century.

They started holding people’s assemblies. They set up barricades across the city. Teachers, housewives, Indigenous organizers, health workers, and students took over 14 different radio stations to defend their struggle.

This is episode 37 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News...

José “Pepe” Mujica was a former political prisoner who suffered more than a decade of prison and torture under Uruguay’s military dictatorship. He rose to become the country’s president from 2010 through 2015.

They called him the world’s humblest president. He was often seen driving himself in his 1987 baby blue VW bug. He lived on a farm. His clothes were simple. So were his words and his actions. Yet he created tremendous change and left an indelible mark on the tiny country of Uruguay and the entire region of Latin America.

This is episode 36 of Stories of Res...

Malcolm X was born on May 19, 1925, exactly 100 hundred years ago. He would grow to become one of the greatest Black leaders in US history. Revolutionary Muslim minister. Black civil rights leader. Human rights activist. Black nationalist.

He stood up to racist violence, white supremacy, and police brutality throughout his life. Malcolm X’s speeches and his words continue to inspire, even 60 years after his assassination. 

This is episode 35 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll...

Augusto Sandino. The man who would lead the six-year rebellion against the US occupation of Nicaragua. The man who would become a legend across the country and also far from the shores of Central America.

The United States called him a bandit. Much of Latin America called him a hero. Augusto Sandino was one of the world’s first anti-imperialist heroes of the 20th century. His story and his resistance against the US occupation of Nicaragua is still the stuff of legends.

This is episode 34 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Gl...

In times of repression and state violence, there is only one way to continue: Together. In 1973 Chile, people did what they could to survive and help others being hunted down by the regime.

This is episode 33 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. You can also follow Micha...

In the early 1980s, one church in Tucson, Arizona, began to open its arms to the waves of migrants and refugees who were fleeing US-backed wars in Central America. They would take in migrants and refugees. They would shelter them against government agents and border patrol.

A new underground railroad for Central Americans fleeing US-backed violence abroad.

It quickly became a national movement. Within three years, 500 churches, synagogues, and university campuses had joined and were actively protecting Central American migrants. Good Samaritans standing for their Central American brothers and sisters.

As President Donald Trump c...

After the Civil War, three women in different times and places celebrated the idea of a Mother’s Day for peace. For unity and solidarity. But when Mother’s Day finally did come, it was co-opted by businesses looking to profit off of it. The founder of the day railed against it. She filed lawsuits. She protested. She was arrested and she even organized a petition to stop it.

But it’s never too late to honor the true meaning of Mother’s Day.

This is episode 31 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News a...

Roque Dalton is considered one of El Salvador’s greatest writers of the 20th century.

His poems are pure art, mixing politics with poetry, blending verse and prose. Humor and reality. History and current events. Beautiful lines, alongside anger at the suffering plight of humanity. And above all that of the downtrodden and poor of El Salvador.

But Roque Dalton did not just write words. He lived them. He attended the world youth festival in Russia. He traveled, met and spoke out against injustices He was imprisoned. Escaped. He lived in Czechoslovakia. Exiled in Mexico. Exiled in...

Ricardo and Neusa Jones are from the Southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. Birth is their calling. But not just any birth. Home birth. Natural birth. Humanized birth. Ricardo Jones is an obstetrician. His wife, Neusa, is an obstetrics nurse. But they embrace the ancestral knowledge of midwives.

But for their work, Ric and Neusa Jones are under attack. On March 27, 2025, Ric Jones was convicted of first-degree murder, 15 years after one of the thousands of babies he delivered died of congenital pneumonia in the hospital 24 hours shortly after the child was born at home.
Ric Jones received...

Folk musician. Banjo player. Singer of songs of unity. He sang songs of joy. He sang for the unions. He sang for the people. For the workers and the downtrodden. He sang songs for change. Civil Rights songs. Folk songs. Despite the Red Scare and McCarthy’s witch hunt, Pete Seeger sang on, helping to inspire the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. And he would continue to sing and play throughout his life.

Pete Seeger died at the age of 94, in 2014.

This is episode 28 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real...

It’s been called the most influential protest you’ve never heard about. In April and May 1971, week-long protests rippled across Washington, DC. Thousands in the streets. Their slogan: “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.” The Nixon administration cracked down, arresting 7,000 people in just one day, and 12,000 people over the first week of May—the largest mass arrest in the history of the United States.

This is episode 27 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action progra...

In El Salvador, thousands of innocent people have been locked up in Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gangs. They have been held without due process for years. But family members are standing up. And on May 1 they march, carrying the pictures and the names of their innocent loved ones detained and held without rights, with the ever-increasing support of the United States.

This is episode 26 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of res...

Harry Belafonte. The King of Calypso. Incredible singer and actor. He performed in more than a dozen movies throughout his career. But above all else, he was an activist. A fighter against racism and oppression, in the United States and around the world.

Belafonte joined the Civil Rights Movement. He marched alongside Martin Luther King. And he remained active into his 90s, working for prison reform, denouncing the Iraq War, George W. Bush, Trump and so much more. Harry Belafonte passed away on April 25, 2023.

This is episode 25 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real...

The Atacama Desert is the driest place on the planet, and one of the most inhospitable. But salt lagoons dot the barren landscape, and flamingos are one of a number of species that have adapted to live in this harsh environment, and are battling to survive.

This is episode 24 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
This week, we celebrate Earth Day, April 22. Apri...

In recent years, local organizations, together with dozens of Indigenous communities, have planted more than 10 million trees up and down the Andes, with almost half of them in the Peruvian mountains around Cusco. Many of the tree species are threatened, and many of the ecosystems at risk.

The trees help to protect and preserve the local environments and ecosystems and in particular help retain water. The communities are also holding on to their local cultures, beliefs and religion. Making offerings and prayers to Pachamama and the Apus. Offerings for the resistance of their peoples on the hillsides of...

The most powerful acts of resistance are sometimes the simple choices we make each day. The words we write. The pictures we take. The people we support. And the decision to step outside our home. To volunteer at migrant shelters. To stand with the most oppressed and marginalized. To fight against unjust systems. These are the daily acts of resistance of writer and reporter Tamara Pearson.

You can follow her work at https://resistancewords.com/She tweets at https://x.com/pajaritaroja

You can find Tamara Pearson’s latest novel, Eyes of the Earth, at https://re...

Federico Avalos is an Argentine poet. But he does not write the words. He recites them. And poetry is both Federico’s job and his activism. A theatric intervention. A temporal break in time from the digital monotony: The selfies, the tweets, the posts, the likes, the comments and the follows.

This is Federico's resistance. Standing up to the cyber mayhem. Breathing art into the void. Magic. Reflection.

This is episode 21 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action progr...

Titles do not do Eduardo Galeano justice. He was writer, reader, journalist, editor. But he was also historian. Catching stories in the air. Writing and retelling them anew. But he did not write for the stuffy halls of the elites or academia. He wrote for the people. He was a truth teller. A myth maker. An essayist. A poet. Polishing his craft. Honing his art. Chiseling his sculptures with words, until they were perfectly symmetrical. Gorgeous bouquets of words.

He was a storyteller. And his tales had morals. His vignettes — tiny packets of beauty that remind us who we...

On April 11, 2002, a massacre occurred on the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, as rebelling officers and members of the country’s Chamber of Commerce attempted a coup against the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. The coup lasted just two days.

The people were not having it. Chavez supporters descended from the hillsides of the poorest communities across Caracas and amassed outside of Miraflores, the presidential palace. They refused to recognize the de facto government.

On April 13, Chavez’s presidential guard expelled the coup leaders and returned Chavez to power.  Pressure from both the people and loyal military force...

April 10 marks the 25th anniversary of the people’s victory in the Cochabamba Water War against the privatization of of their precious resource. Community members protested and shut down the streets for months in defense of their right to water after Cochabamba handed the municipal water supply over to a subsidiary of the US construction firm Bechtel. Rates spiked. People stood up.

This is episode 18 of Stories of Resistance — a new podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange.  Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories...

April 8 is the International Day of the Roma, or Romani, people. It takes place each year to focus attention on the discrimination and marginalization of Roma communities across the world. 

According to researchers, there are upwards of 15 million Roma people worldwide, and 1.5 million Roma people in Latin America. They continue to hold on to their traditions & way of life, despite discrimination & marginalization.

This is episode 17 of Stories of Resistance — a new podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’...

On April 7, 2018, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was jailed on charges of corruption. But his supporters said he was innocent — convicted on trumped-up charges by a biased judge hell-bent on power, and taking down the Workers Party. They launched an around the clock vigil that would last for 580 days. Finally, Brazil’s Supreme Court tossed out the conviction. Lula was free. Less than three years later, he once again won the presidency. 

This is episode 16 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange...

In 1979 and 1980, Brazilian metal workers held huge strikes, demanding higher wages and better working conditions. They were unprecedented, and a sign of the beginning of the end of the military dictatorship. They were led by one charismatic labor leader named Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.

This is episode 15 of Stories of Resistance — a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange's Human Rights in Action program.

Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

This week, in rememb...

On March 31, 1964, the Brazilian military carried out a US-backed coup against the democratically elected government, installing a dictatorship that would last for 21 years. Hundreds of people were disappeared. Thousands imprisoned and tortured. But musicians stood up, singing songs that were a sometimes subtle — sometimes not-so-subtle — critique of the dictatorship. 

The military regime responded by censoring songs, music and artists. Some, like Chico Buarque, went into exile. Others were detained, jailed and even tortured. But still the music played on. Still, artists found a way for their music to reach the people. Still, the music gave hope that...

Today, March 31, is Cesar Chavez Day. The day, celebrating the birth and life of the great U.S. farmworker labor leader. In 1962, Cesar Chavez co-founded the United Farm Workers, alongside Dolores Huerta. 

The organization would go on to wage strikes and boycotts, winning tremendous victories for workers picking the crops in the fields of California and elsewhere in the United States. In 1969, he was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. In 1970, Chavez and the UFW won higher wages for grape pickers, after a 5-year-long California grape strike.

Chavez’s legacy lives on.

But tha...

On March 8, 2025, ICE agents detained, without a warrant, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil at his home in New York City. Khalil is a U.S. resident, but Trump officials said they’d stripped him of his green card. His crime? Standing up and speaking out against the U.S.-backed Israeli attack on Palestine. As a graduate student at Columbia University last year, he helped to lead protests against Israeli genocide in Gaza.

And just as he stood up for the Palestinians, others are standing up for Khalil. People have rallied for his freedom across the country.

Th...

In late 2023, Panamanians shut down their country for months to demand the closure of a Canadian copper mine. And they won. It was not just a protest against a foreign company. It was about the country’s sovereignty after a century of US occupation and invasions. 

The US occupation of Panama is not ancient history, here. It is still in the forefront of everyone’s mind. So are the decades of blood, sweat, and tears that it took to finally win back the region of the Panama Canal from the United States in 1999.

And Panamanians are not g...

Today, March 24, is the anniversary of the 1976 coup that led to the brutal Argentine dictatorship. In Argentina, it’s known as the National Day for Memory and Truth and Justice. It honors the victims of the military regime. 30,000 people were disappeared under the 7-year-long military regime. Each year, big marches and demonstrations are held in Buenos Aires to mark the date. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are always front and center.

They have marched for five decades to demand justice and the return of their children and grandchildren. Today, in this 11th episode of Stories of Re...

Monsignor Óscar Romero was the archbishop of San Salvador. They called him la voz de la sin voz, The voice of the voiceless. He spoke out against the government repression, violence and killings in the late 1970s El Salvador. It cost him his life. He was killed on March 24, 1980, while at the altar while delivering mass. In 2018, Pope Francis declared him a saint. His legacy lives on.

This is the tenth episode of Stories of Resistance — a new podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspir...

In the 1840s, hundreds of Irish soldiers joined the Saint Patrick’s Battalion to help defend Mexico against the invading US army. They fought under Irish Captain John Riley and they marched under the green flag of Saint Patrick, with the harp and the shamrock and the Irish words Erin Go Bragh embroidered across it. “Ireland forever.” Today, the Saint Patrick's Battalion is still remembered in Mexico.

This is the ninth episode of Stories of Resistance — a new podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiratio...

Chile’s largest carnival is an act of resistance. A celebration of multicultural identity and Indigenous roots in a land where soldiers forced assimilation with the barrel of a gun.In this eighth episode of Stories of Resistance, we go to Northern Chile, to the streets of the Arica carnival celebrating Aymara, Quechua, and African culture.

Stories of Resistance is a new project, co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a...

The average transgender man or woman in Uruguay lives to just 35 years of age. They are often ridiculed and rejected. Forced from school at far too young an age. Forced into prostitution and other dangerous jobs.

But one woman has been standing up. Collette Spinetti Nuñez helped to push the passage of Latin America’s first trans law in 2018. This week, she became the first trans woman, ever, to hold a cabinet-level position in the Uruguayan government. The new leftist Frente Amplio administration took office on March 1. Colette is the country’s new secretary of human rights. 
<...

In 2019 Venezuela, U.S. sanctions are wreaking havoc. Broken cars sit along roadsides, because there are no parts to fix them. Water systems are failing, because replacement parts can’t be purchased from abroad. Health supplies are hard to find. In particular, medicine.

But neighbors in one Caracas commune are standing up for each other. They’ve created a community pharmacy. They get the medicine from anywhere they can. Donations from abroad. From individuals. Solidarity groups. It’s all free. A sign sits out front. "Communal Pharmacy. Health for the Barrio."

This is the sixth episode of Sto...

In the Caribbean jungles of Quintana Roo, two Mayan brothers lived. They were fierce warriors. And they are still defending their land, in the forest of present-day Mexico.

This is the fifth episode of Stories of Resistance.

Stories of Resistance is a new project, co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review.

We’ve recently launched a Kickstarter to help get the series of...

In the early days of COVID, when the disease spreads like wildfire, and ICU units overflow capacity, there are few places as bad as Brazil. But Brazilian Indigenous communities take action. They set up roadblocks in the entrances into their territories. They block unwanted visitors, test temperatures, and distribute masks. They also turn to their ancestral medicine—their native plants, and share their knowledge with other neighboring tribes.

This is the fourth episode of Stories of Resistance.

Stories of Resistance is a new project, co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring y...

They were building not just any basement. It was to house printing machines that would make books and leaflets. Flyers and pamphlets. Materials for the cause. And not just any printing press. The largest clandestine printing press in the country of Argentina—the social media of the 1970s.

This is the third episode of Stories of Resistance. 

Stories of Resistance is a new project, co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If you like what you hear, please subsc...

It was a cold day in Washington when Trump came to town. But the people would not stay silent. Despite the cold, thousands marched. And though you won’t hear about this in the inaugural address or on the nightly news, in neighborhoods across the United States, people are organizing. They have been for months.

This is the second episode of Stories of Resistance. 

Stories of Resistance is a new project, co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If yo...

Hope does not die. But it can fade until it's transformed and reborn. In the wake of Chile’s 1973 coup, Chilean folk musician Victor Jara was detained with thousands of others. But amid the suffering and chaos, Victor Jara found a paper and pencil. He wrote his last poem just hours before he was killed. It continues to inspire until today.

This is the first episode of Stories of Resistance. 

Stories of Resistance is a new project brought to you by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like...

Stories of Resistance is a new podcast featuring vignettes pulled from journalist Michael Fox's 20 years of interviews, research, and reporting from across the Americas. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance. Inspiration for dark times.

Each episode is an example of investigative journalism, prose, poetry, historical memory, reflection on struggle—and, above all, story. Stories that remind us of the struggles that have come before, and the ones we are living now. Stories about workers' struggles; resistance to dictatorship; alternative media; Indigenous and environmental organizing; and more. Eduardo Galeano-inspired vignettes for a Trump 2.0 world.

Stor...