Westside Inclusion Initiative Community

At Our Local History, our core purpose is to tell the stories of our past to build and create a more equitable and just future.

In 2025, our partners sent a clear message: this work matters now more than ever. Because of our incredible collaborators and their commitment to the truth, we saw a year of transformative growth:

Expanded Reach: We led 290 workshops . Bigger Conversations: We engaged 11,000 people. New Roots: 43 organizations joined us for the first time. Deepened Trust: Over 60 partners invited us back to continue the journey.

Beyond the numbers, we’ve been hard at work expanding and deepening our workshops, resources, and lessons to reflect the specific histories of the communities we serve. This year, we were honored to unveil:
-Haudenosaunee Resilience and Resistance: A vital new unit on land dispossession and resistance in Greater Rochester.
-Syracuse & Ithaca: New units on LGBTQ+ Civil Rights.
-Ulster, Westchester, Chemung, Steuben, & Sullivan Counties: new units on local histories of Enslavement and Redlining.
-Binghamton: A new children’s book and grade 2 unit highlighting the legacy of Civil Rights leader Beccye Fawcett.

To every partner, collaborator, and community member who leaned in this year: Thank you. You are proving that when we face our history honestly, we build a stronger future together.

💬 Questioning whether it’s helpful to step into a conversation about skin color between kids in your classroom? Wondering when it’s okay to start talking about race with kids anyway?

Join our newly revised course, Why & How to Talk About Race with Kids, and get practical, research-based guidance on:

✨ When, how, and what children understand about race
✨ What communication about race and racism with kids looks and sounds like
✨ How caregivers can orient themselves to keep the race conversation going for the long-term.

📅 Five 90-minute virtual sessions
Best for caregivers of children ages 4–13

Use promo code TAKE25OFF to save $25 on any sliding scale ticket price.

Secure your spot at: bit.ly/WhyHowTalkRace_Sun

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/deportations-lessons-from-history/

Deportations — Why and How to Resist: Lessons from History Just like today, the mass kidnapping and deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression had little to do with law, but is rather a program of “racial expulsion.” These lessons from history can help us today.