On Monday, President Donald Trump ordered 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital — a move Princeton University professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad described as “a slide towards fascism” and “textbook” authoritarianism. Claiming emergency powers from the D.C. Home Rule Act, Trump also announced a takeover of the Metropolitan Police.

From time to time, researchers, policy makers, philanthropy and practitioners all join together in a coordinated response to address the most pressing issues facing America’s youth. I’ve been involved with this process for long enough to have participated in each of these roles. I recall during the early 1990s experts promoted the term “resiliency,” which is the capacity to adapt, navigate and bounce back from adverse and challenging life experiences. Researchers and practitioners alike clamored over strategies to build more resilient youth.

When Jesse Hagopian first encountered Malcolm X, it wasn’t in a textbook or classroom lecture. It was through Spike Lee’s iconic 1992 film. “I realized I needed to learn more,” Hagopian, educator and director of the Teaching for Black Lives campaign at the Zinn Education Project, tells Word In Black. “Reading his autobiography in college was transformative — like it has been for so many. But it also left me feeling betrayed. Why hadn’t I learned about Malcolm in school?”