The third week of “100 Days to Inspire Respect” will continue the themes of February’s Black History Month to focus on the importance of defending civil rights and human rights in the United States and around the world.

Educators in the Detroit area and Glendale, Calif., attended professional development workshops on IWitness in the first months of 2017 in order to learn more about how to incorporate testimony into their teaching.

The annual conference brings together experts in the field to discuss new research and advances in oral history and its use in a variety of contexts.

My friends Allison (Ally) Vandal, Maya Montell and I worked with our fabulous teacher, Emily Bengels, to create a group called Poet’s Undercover Guild (PUG). With this “guild”, we drew inspiration from testimony found in USC Shoah Foundation’s educational platform, IWitness to create our winning video “A Community of Poetry.”