Buffy Sainte-Marie, who is Cree, is a singer, composer, artist and educator. She founded and operates the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education.

This book provides the top 1,300 words for understanding media Arabic.  This guide can help journalists who are covering topics of Islam.

Bill Bigelow, along with Bob Peterson, is editor of Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (Rethinking Schools, 1998). Bigelow works for Rethinking Schools magazine and teaches a class at Franklin High School in Portland, Ore. He is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools and the co-director of the Zinn Education Project.

Mike L. Graham, who is Cherokee, is founder of United Native America, which is working to abolish Columbus Day and create a federal national holiday for Native Americans. The online holiday petition which he started has more than 63,000 signatures.

John Anthony McGuckin is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine and Spiritual Culture (2008) and many other books and articles.

Read an Oct. 10, 2005, Democracy Now transcript about activism for Indigenous Peoples Day.

Read the government’s past updates on its “Hurricane Help for Schools” program (the site is no longer updated past August 2006). Private schools and religious schools are eligible for aid.

The National Council of Churches adopted a resolution called “A Faithful Response” in 1990 calling the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first landing and “the painful aspects of the American history of racism.”

Read a History article about the history behind Columbus day and what it means to Americans today.