It’s been less than a month since former President Donald Trump walked into the Republican National Convention to thunderous applause, having survived an assassination attempt and holding a commanding lead against an opponent many viewed as enfeebled. But it may as well have been a lifetime ago. 

Since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket, she’s seen a groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm, record donations, and a surge in the polls. And Mr. Trump seems to have been thrown back on his heels, unsure how to recalibrate against a fresh, younger opponent, with fewer than 100 days until the election.

His initial responses to the sudden momentum shift – from questioning Ms. Harris’ racial identity, to disparaging Georgia’s popular Republican governor, to holding long, meandering press conferences – have only reinforced the race’s new dynamic. 

Elections are about contrasts, and right now at least, the new matchup has created a less flattering contrast for Mr. Trump. Suddenly, he’s the “old” candidate, with an act that seems stale after nearly a decade on the national political scene. Many Republicans outside the campaign, from Vivek Ramaswamy to Nikki Haley, have been encouraging Mr. Trump to refocus his message on policy, tying Ms. Harris to the Biden record and casting her as more liberal than mainstream America. 

Thus far, however, Mr. Trump has been falling back on his tried-and-true method of making the campaign more about personality and trying to dominate news cycles – a strategy that has only once resulted in victory, in 2016, when he lost the popular vote but eked out an Electoral College win. He’s even bringing back some veterans from his previous campaigns, such as former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump and supporters watch video clips of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana, Aug. 9, 2024.

“He is no longer the new thing, so he needs to find a way to demonstrate how he would create a better future for Americans,” says Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and a former communications director in Mr. Trump’s State Department. “If policy matters, of course it is not just possible but probable that he wins this race. But only he can do it.”

Messages in a Thursday press conference

At a press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, Mr. Trump began by reading several economic talking points. “Grocery prices have skyrocketed,” he said, in front of tables filled with coffee cans, breakfast cereal, and sausage, adding that the price of gas had reached “an absolutely beautiful number” under his own administration. But the former president soon pivoted, speaking at length about how wind turbines kill birds and praising the strength of controversial Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.

When Mr. Trump took reporters’ questions after speaking for roughly 45 minutes, he was asked if he planned to heed Republicans’ warnings and focus on a disciplined message rather than on personal attacks.

“I think I’m entitled to personal attacks,” said Mr. Trump. “I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”

Why Trump’s polling edge has eroded

Forces outside of Mr. Trump’s control, of course, have contributed to his changing fortunes. There has been increased scrutiny of his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, for past controversial comments, including one that referred to Democratic women as “childless cat ladies.” And last weekend, it was revealed that Mr. Trump’s campaign had been hacked, with confidential documents sent to several news organizations – an act that Mr. Trump has attributed to the Iranian government, although the source has not yet been confirmed. 

But Mr. Trump’s own behavior hasn’t helped.

“Saying ‘This is unfair’ and calling [the change in the Democratic ticket] a coup, these aren’t things that voters care about,” says Matt Wylie, a Republican strategist based in South Carolina. “He just seems to be talking about the wrong things ... things that are only going to alienate suburban women, Black, and Hispanic voters.”

To make matters worse, the former president now seems to be squandering an advantage he’d held in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – states that Mr. Trump had won in 2016 but then lost in 2020. As President Biden’s poll numbers sank, Mr. Trump had opened up a clear lead in what had been Democrats’ “blue wall,” notes Mr. Wylie. “It was up to Harris to rebuild that wall, but Trump now has helped Harris.” 

A New York Times/Siena College poll from last week found Ms. Harris leading in all three must-win states by 4 percentage points among likely voters. It’s a significant swing from polling in late July before Mr. Biden exited the race, when Mr. Trump led Pennsylvania and Michigan by 5 points, and Wisconsin by 4 points. Similarly, a new Franklin and Marshall poll released Thursday found Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump by 3 points in Pennsylvania.

Alex Brandon/AP

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance walks back from looking at Air Force Two at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Aug. 7, 2024. Both major parties are campaigning hard in this battleground state.

Election may be close in the end

Still, many election experts believe that despite Mr. Trump’s recent struggles, the Harris honeymoon will end at some point – and the election is likely to be very close.

Dan Naylor, chair of the Lackawanna County GOP in northeast Pennsylvania, a region that could determine who wins the state, says he believes Republican voters are going to be even more motivated to turn out now that their candidate could be the underdog. Mr. Trump announced plans to hold a rally in nearby Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. 

“The former president needs to stick to the issues and stay away from the personal attacks,” says Mr. Naylor. “He needs to stay the course.” 

Mr. Trump remains ahead in Georgia and North Carolina, and Ms. Harris’ recent polling leads in Arizona and Nevada are minimal. Notably, although Mr. Trump’s favorability ratings remain underwater in the recent Franklin and Marshall poll, says Berwood Yost, director of the college’s Center for Opinion Research, they have actually improved by a few points since the last survey.

“It’s not so much that Trump’s numbers have sagged; it’s that the Democratic base has reenergized itself,” says Mr. Yost. “Now there is no [partisan] difference in enthusiasm like there was before. ... The factions within the Democratic Party have rallied back to Harris.” 

Will the momentum advantage for Harris last?

And while that rallying has resulted in a lot of free media coverage over the past few weeks – the same type that helped drive Mr. Trump’s first campaign – that may not last. 

Ms. Harris has gotten “a cushy ride” from the press, says Terry Sullivan, a GOP strategist who managed Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “She has been built up and has not had to talk about a single policy issue. She hasn’t had to lay out how she’s different from Biden. ... [But] the good news about that is that what the media gives, the media takes away.”  

Republicans have been hammering on the fact that Ms. Harris has yet to put forward a substantial policy vision or hold a press conference or interview since she became the nominee.

The Harris honeymoon will likely continue through next week, as Democrats gather in Chicago for their convention. Once it ends, Republicans will need to work quickly to try to turn things around, or else the momentum could “carry Ms. Harris to the White House,” says Mr. Wylie, despite her running a campaign “based on nothing.”

Unlike in 2016, he says, Mr. Trump can’t rely on taunting nicknames to damage his opponent. 

“Trump can change this,” says Mr. Wylie. “But it has to be about the why.”

More 2024 election coverage

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Kamala Harris has the opportunity to rebrand herself in the eyes of voters. Her focus will include protecting abortion rights – and drawing a contrast with Donald Trump on justice.

In Pennsylvania, ordinary citizens combat political violence

Before the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, there had been rising incidents of harassment and threats of violence against public officials. Here’s how some people are working to dampen the risks.

Joe Biden’s legacy rests with Kamala Harris. Can he help her win?

From now to Election Day, a sensitive issue for the Harris campaign and the White House is, Where and when should Joe Biden be seen? It matters not just for the election, but also for his own legacy.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Children jump between pools of sewage-contaminated water in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Aug. 15, 2024.

This week, the news that an Israeli airstrike had wrecked another shelter, this time a disused Gaza City school, was not merely depressing and shocking. It literally made me tremble.

The video footage of the aftermath filled me with fear. The charred remains of the dead scattered in pieces. Rescuers carting off bodies in blankets and bags because they had neither stretchers nor ambulances. I wanted to scream. Why must we endure such hardship, when all we seek is a life of peace and dignity? The injustice left me feeling paralyzed.

Israel said it had targeted Hamas militants, but more than 100 civilians were killed in the attack, many of them women and children.  “Why doesn’t Israel just kill all of us together and rid the world of Gaza?” one of my neighbors asked aloud in despair.

Everywhere here, people’s faces are filled with sorrow and frustration. “Who cares?” one woman wondered. “Who will act? Who will stop this?”

Everyone has the same unanswered question: “Who will stop this war?” We no longer even bother to ask where humanity has gone.

Gaza children scouring for something to sell

In the Al-Mawasi beach area and in Deir al-Balah, children going barefoot or wearing torn sandals wade through sewage-contaminated water and climb over mounds of garbage. Some of them scour for something to sell; others look for wood to burn or clothes to wear. Nearby, makeshift pits shielded by burlap serve as lavatories. There is nowhere to wash your hands.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Evacuees stay in makeshift tents on a plot of agricultural land near the correspondent’s house in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, Aug. 15, 2024.

In the stifling summer heat, the stench and filth that envelop us are an inevitable reality of war – just as familiar as the pangs of hunger and the distant sounds of bombing.

Evacuee tents, once pristine and colorful, are now worn and faded from months of exposure to the sun. Men occasionally try to repair them using gray blankets distributed by aid groups, scraps of fabric, or additional sheets of nylon. In wood-burning clay ovens, some women attempt to make sweets like halab pastries, sticky with sugar and swarming with flies, sending their children to sell them at the beach or among the tents. Yet I fear that we are only applying a veneer to this life of displacement. Why would we want to beautify such a harsh existence?

Next to my home lies a stretch of agricultural land. Once one family had erected a tent there, others quickly followed, and soon a cluster of tents sprang up, even though Israel has not designated the area as a “safe zone.”

When the Israelis invaded Rafah in May, people sought any available spot here to set up their temporary shelters. But a few days later, nearby artillery fire frightened them and they fled. Now, with nowhere else to go, they’ve begun to put up their tents here once again.

What was shocking is now normal in Gaza

We are surrounded by images and sounds that a few months ago were shocking and are now normal. Men piling into car trunks for a long journey to somewhere “safe.” Amputees hobbling on crutches over puddles of sewage. The other day I saw a one-legged child trying to flag down a donkey cart. One driver finally took him free of charge.

Now, in Gaza, even a child can distinguish the differences of the buzz of the drones that fly all day and night over our heads, the roar of F-16 fighter jets, and the clatter of Apache helicopters. Since the war erupted on Oct. 7, quadcopters have become a familiar sight, sometimes followed by missile strikes on crowded civilian areas.

Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed and there are widespread outbreaks of skin and water-borne diseases. Almost every family I know has someone who has contracted hepatitis A. It now seems unavoidable, exacerbated by the lack of water and proper sanitation.

Ghada Abdulfattah

The author’s brother, Motassim, hoists a bag on his shoulder and walks, evacuating the family home under Israeli military orders, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Aug. 16, 2024.

Recently, my sister went through some old family photos. She says that we were once well-fed people, clean and with a bright life. Now if I wanted to draw our portraits, they would all be in shades of gray.

I often see things I want to describe and write about, but the blank page daunts me. I type out my thoughts, and then delete them. I’m not sure to whom I’m writing, or why.

Order from Israeli military: “Evacuate”

As I finished this letter, the Israeli army’s spokesperson issued an order that my family should evacuate our home. The military is shrinking the “safe zone” to a sliver of the Al-Mawasi beach; my neighborhood will be a center of military operations.

Each of us grabbed what bags we had at the ready and scattered: to Al-Mawasi, to Khan Yunis, to the other side of Deir al-Balah. My father insisted that he stay behind. Even as I sit here trying to figure out what to do next, the Israeli military keeps calling me with the same recorded message: “Evacuate. Go to Mawasi.”

But we have no tent to pitch on Al-Mawasi’s sand dunes, and anyway there is no room there for more tents. I feel like a character in a war story: Everyone is waiting to see if I will survive.

Sarah Silbiger/Reuters/File

A woman shops for groceries at El Progreso Market in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington.

Although inflation has slowed over the past year, it is still top of mind for most voters – with high grocery costs one of the most visible pressures on many Americans’ everyday lives.

That’s a challenge not just for consumers but also for Vice President Kamala Harris as she runs for president on the Biden-Harris track record. It explains why her first major policy speech as a 2024 candidate, on Friday in North Carolina, called for a ban on grocery store price gouging and other steps to tackle inflation in the U.S. economy.

“This is the biggest political issue of the campaign this fall,” says Timothy Richards, an economist at Arizona State University. “Up until now, the biggest complaint with the Biden administration has been inflation” because, for most younger adults, inflation is out of the norm, he says.

Vice President Harris also pledged to address the cost of parenting with an expanded tax credit for families with new children. And on housing, she promised to boost homebuilding and promote legislation to curb rent hikes and give down-payment assistance to first-time homebuyers. 

Food prices are already a campaign-year focus, with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wielding grocery products as props the day before Ms. Harris spoke.

On Aug. 1, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan announced an inquiry into high food prices “​​in order to probe the tactics that big grocery chains use to hike prices and extract profits from everyday Americans at the checkout counter.”

Grocery retailers may seem like the natural ones to look at, for blame regarding pricey receipts. But economists say the reasons behind price hikes are multifaceted – and generally lie further back in the supply chain, several steps before the public-facing grocery stores where you swipe your card.

How much have food prices risen in the past four years?

Prices for “food at home” (essentially grocery store items) rose 21% between when President Joe Biden took office and this July. That’s a drastic shift for Americans accustomed to much slower changes. The same category, as tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, saw prices rise only 2.7% during the first three years of the prior presidential term, before the COVID-19 pandemic started.

After its surge during the pandemic and beyond, inflation decelerated toward normal as 2023 went on. As of July, food inflation is running at a 2.2% annualized rate (and “food at home” at half that rate). 

Dr. Richards notes that the Federal Reserve aims to hold inflation at about 2% a year for the economy in general. Judging by that yardstick, food inflation is “just about back to normal.” 

What’s behind the high food prices?

Well, the answer may not be satisfying. There’s no one evil corporation to catch in order to send food prices back to what consumers remember from five years ago. 

Pandemic supply chain disruptions played a role. One big driver was rising energy and fertilizer prices, which jumped amid the breakout of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Inflation is to some extent a worldwide phenomenon, but also heavily influenced by individual nations’ central bank policies. Many economists say the Federal Reserve kept money-supply spigots too loose, for too long, as inflationary pressures gathered in the economy. They also say Congress and the White House played a role, such as with legislation to pump pandemic relief into the economy – boosting demand for goods and services (which can drive prices up).

The pandemic era also saw tight labor supply.

“The cost of labor ... is a major factor, especially in food industries,” says Sean Cash, an economist at Tufts University. 

This goes back to farms and food-processing industries, and carries on through trucking and all the way to the retail store.

“These are often labor-intensive – many parts of that supply chain are – so higher wages means higher cost of production, means higher prices. And this is that wage inflation spiral,” he says. “More money in your paycheck is a good thing for you, but higher prices because everyone else is getting paid more as well is a problem.”

Why have food prices remained high?

Inflation is often misunderstood as the price level, whereas it’s the rate of increase in prices, Dr. Richards explains. So when inflation cools down, it doesn’t mean that prices fall.

“We don’t want price levels to go down,” he adds. “If prices did start to fall, that’s probably the worst thing that can happen to an economy,” often coinciding with deep recessions and collapsing supply of credit.

“We don’t want deflation. We just want lower inflation,” he says.

The best way to allay inflation’s sting: Wages must catch up. That has been slowly happening, but not at an even pace for all workers.

How much of a profit are grocery stores actually making?

Some of the most salient consumer expenses – food and gas – are also industries with low profit margins.  

Averaged across the biggest food retailers, the profit margin is about 2.5%, Dr. Richards says, similar to that for gas stations. 

Any business needs some profit, or it will likely close down. And a small profit margin works, when spread over a high volume of overall sales.

Jeffrey Dorfman, an economist at North Carolina State University, says that based on their latest earnings reports, Albertsons made a 1% profit, Kroger 2%, and Costco 2.9%.

“Walmart does not break out their groceries separate from the rest of their sales, and they only make 3% on the whole store,” he adds. “So none of the big grocery chains are making anything that could be called price gouging or extraordinary profits or anything like that.”

Food manufacturers often have higher margins. PepsiCo, the manufacturer of Frito-Lay, Quaker, Doritos, Gatorade, and more, makes a 13% profit margin, higher than some rivals. But Dr. Dorfman says Pepsi’s margin is far from “obscene” and certainly wouldn’t suggest price gouging.

So, can a ban on price gouging achieve much?

Federal agencies can watch for – and pursue – specific instances of unfair business practices. The FTC is already a key player in such efforts. For example, the FTC recently sued to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger in an attempt to prevent monopolization.

The Harris campaign’s grocery pricing proposal would instruct the commission to penalize corporations that jack up prices. Ms. Harris is targeting a lack of competition in the meatpacking industry, in particular.

But economists emphasize that, for the most part, prices for food and other things are largely beyond the agency’s control.

For many older people, the feeling of being recognized or “seen” can seem like a luxury reserved for the young, especially when it comes to technology products, which are almost always designed and marketed for adults younger than 60 years old.  

But that’s changing. Older consumers are drawing attention as a distinct and fast-growing tech target market. Despite persistent stereotypes about being tech-averse, they regularly engage, stream, and shop online, often using multiple devices.

Patricia Cole, a 79-year-old Bloomington, Indiana, artist, uses her iPhone and iPad daily to engage on multiple social media platforms, shop, and stream music through her headphones while she paints.

“I often make little videos – they call them reels – for Instagram around my studio, looking at paintings and talking about them,” says Ms. Cole, a former longtime city councilor here. “I wouldn’t say I’m really good with tech, but I can figure a lot of things out.”

Older tech users like Ms. Cole, living, working, and playing longer than previous generations, have unique consumer needs and the means to acquire new apps and devices to make their lives more fun and fulfilling.  

The market for “age tech,” or gerontechnology – digital products and platforms that aim to meet the specific needs of older people – has exploded in recent years, with many companies in the space focused on health- and care-related devices. Now, recognizing the spending power of users like Ms. Cole, investors are increasingly backing startups with household gadgets and lifestyle items geared toward social connection, gaming, fitness, education, relationship-building, and home-sharing.

The shifting internet user base

“Demographic changes are among the most significant changes to technology, because they represent changes to the internet user base,” says founder-turned-investor Monique Woodard. Her venture capital firm, Cake Ventures, funds startups that leverage demographic shifts, including the rapid growth of the older population.

There are about 62 million people ages 65 or older in the United States – close to 20% of the population. It is the wealthiest age group and accounted for 22% of spending in 2022, up from 15% in 2010, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s consumer expenditures survey. Technology spending by people older than 50 is expected to grow to $623 billion per year by 2050, according to recent research by AARP.

Another recent AARP study reveals a new reality about older people and tech: Americans over 50 own smartphones at roughly the rate consumers ages 18 to 49 do. Even among those ages 70-plus, 61% say they “have the digital skills necessary to fully take advantage of being online.” Video gaming is also widespread among older adults; most play logic, puzzle, or card games on their smartphones, but more are purchasing gaming consoles in recent years.

Older people are generally more skeptical of artificial intelligence and more concerned about data privacy, and they might need higher contrast or larger text on websites, but many regularly download and use digital apps and platforms much as younger generations do.

Debunking ageist stereotypes.

The age 65-plus population skews female, and many in this demographic are fitness-conscious, tech-savvy women who enjoy traveling and spending time with friends and loved ones. As their numbers swell, they’re bringing to life a new vision of old age, garnering such online descriptors as “modern grandma” and “glam-ma.”

Investors are taking notice, says Ms. Woodard, whose relatively early interest in age tech began in 2016: “I’ve seen it completely change and evolve over the last several years. Now, there are a number of individual investors, as well as firms, who are very interested in the aging space. They think of this as a good strategy, and downstream capital is more available.”

Courtesy of Eben Pingree

Kinsome is an AI-powered app designed to help grandparents connect and communicate with their grandchildren.

Similarly, Mary Furlong, a longevity economy expert working at the intersection of aging, health, and technology, saw age tech's potential as far back as 1996, when she founded the nonprofit SeniorNet.

“The longevity market today is where the internet was 30 years ago,” she says. “Many companies didn’t have an internet strategy 30 years ago because they were just learning how the digital world was going to change business and change culture.”

Although age tech companies have awoken to the opportunities within the demographic changes, they have not yet established best practices for involving older adults in product design. As a result, most older gamers “feel like an afterthought to the gaming industry,” AARP researchers wrote. 

Company founders, like Eben Pingree of Boston-based Kinsome, an AI-powered app that facilitates engagement between grandparents and grandchildren, find it difficult to connect at scale for product research with older adults who live independently. Early on, Kinsome relied mainly on input from residents of living facilities for older people. Now, it gets feedback from beta users in the company's target market.  

“Part of the problem is that there isn’t enough segmenting of those groups and talking about them more specifically,” Mr. Pingree says.

Reaching this fragmented market is often a challenge of whether to aim directly at older consumers, their adult children, or organizations and governments, says Ms. Furlong. At the same time, companies relying on ageist cliches and stereotypes in their ads experience backlash. Ms. Furlong advises her clients to develop strong business-to-business strategies in which nonprofits, governments, and other businesses help get products into consumer hands.

Gerontologist and marketer Amy LaGrant believes “the experienced consumer,” a term she coined for the multigenerational, multifaceted user group, deserves sophisticated, tailored messaging.

“I’m not necessarily saying that young people are dumb, but I am saying that experience and wisdom come with age,” she recently told an audience at an Aging 2.0 startup pitch competition in Nashville. “These are people who ran the world before they became a ‘senior.’”   

Many experienced entrepreneurs, surprised by the dearth of tech useful to their aging parents, have found themselves involved in age tech. Their products are making it easier for older people to tell their life stories, stay connected socially, monitor and manage health, continue learning, and live more independently.

Ms. Furlong, a well-known figure in the age tech space, is optimistic that changing attitudes and perceptions of aging will ultimately improve the quality and diversity of digital solutions coming onto the market for older users. “What I find the most exciting,” Ms. Furlong says, “is the orchestra of talent developing the next set of solutions. I’ve never seen as many smart people coming into this space.”

This article was written with the support of a journalism fellowship from the Gerontological Society of America, the Journalists Network on Generations, and The Commonwealth Fund.  

Walls, within the framework of nationalism, have often been tools of isolation and division. Those border walls have been found in the Far East, in Europe, and in America.

Bryan Stevenson, famed lawyer and the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, had a different vision for a wall. Sure, it would cast an intimidating shadow reflective of the nation’s dark past. But it would also carry an inscription of freedom and perseverance to celebrate formerly enslaved Black people and their descendants. 

The National Monument to Freedom is part of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, one of EJI’s trio of Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama. Etched into it are 122,000 last names – ones people chose after emancipation. 

“When enslaved people took these names, they created an identity in America that would last for generations,” Mr. Stevenson said in an interview after the monument’s dedication this summer on Juneteenth. “I didn’t fight in the Vietnam War, but I honor those people who were killed. I didn’t fight in the World Wars, but I honor those people who fought. And I think every American should honor these people who gave so much and got so little.”

What is it like to visit the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park? 

These EJI sites and projects aren’t just exemplary in terms of dignity. They also elicit an intimate understanding of the atrocities committed against Africans in the American experience.

That intimacy is such a priority that EJI only allows patrons to take pictures at the front of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. On-site interviews with visitors are also discouraged, which, in hindsight, was an advantage to this writer. It allowed me to fully engage with the park, not only as a historian, but as a Black man. It was an overwhelming experience.

Kim Chandler/AP

Visitors arrive at the National Monument to Freedom June 19, 2024, in Montgomery, Alabama. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves – as documented in the 1870 census – after being emancipated.

Last year, I visited the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, and ran into a woman who seemed emotionally shaken by what she had experienced. As it turned out, she, like me, was inspired by the resilience of “our people.”

Charleston is mentioned in the sculpture park, alongside an ignominious figure – 150,000 – the number of enslaved people brought to and through South Carolina’s shores. It was a number that brought me to tears – a cruel reminder of how that piece of South Carolina’s coast was ground zero for chattel slavery in America.

If Charleston was the gateway to America for more than 100,000 Africans, then Mr. Stevenson’s sculpture park is a gateway to outlining the full Black American experience. There are chains, plantation dwellings, and cruel depictions of a most harsh period in American history. Shrouded in woodland, the park isn’t just earthy. It contains a gravity that suggests this soil has soulfulness.

What happens next is a journey toward resistance and perseverance. Along my way through the park, I was greeted by a larger model of Strike, a stainless steel sculpture created by Hank Willis Thomas in 2018 that I first encountered as part of the “Giants” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. There was also a sculpture of a hand that made it seem as if a tree was growing out of its palm, a reference to the roots of Black folk. 

Vasha Hunt/AP

The Equal Justice Initiative's new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park includes the 2018 stainless steel sculpture Strike, by Hank Willis Thomas.

Daniel Popper’s larger-than-life-size Hallow sculpture also grabbed me and didn’t let go. A glass fiber sculpture reinforced by concrete steel, it is an image of a Black woman opening herself up for the world to see. I stopped there for a few minutes, thinking of the legends of praying grandmothers and other incomparable women. I thought about Malcolm X’s commentary about the most disrespected and unprotected person in America.

“My name is on that wall”

Finally, I arrived back at the place where I started – the National Monument of Freedom. “My name is on that wall,” Mr. Stevenson told me in our interview. “I was surprised at how emotional it was for me to finally see my name, Stevenson, someplace, in a place of honor, and to think about my grandparents and great-grandparents.”

Later that day, I visited the other two Legacy Sites – the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Legacy Museum. I also went to the Montgomery riverfront, which had a history of racial angst before last year’s infamous brawl. I thought about the intentionality of those sites, and the importance of telling the truth, however uncomfortable.

“I think in many ways, this becomes the center of what we’re trying to do, because you can’t understand lynching without slavery. You can’t understand segregation and Jim Crow without slavery,” Mr. Stevenson said. “I don’t think you can understand mass incarceration and many of the challenges that we see today without understanding this history. So, yes, this is a very, very special place for me.”

For the Ukrainian firefighter near the war’s front line with Russia, the work is never done. This day showed why.

After he ended a long shift putting out flames at 8:30 a.m., he did not go home. Instead he changed clothes, pulling on a uniform labeled “Ukrainian Rescuer,” before jumping into his car and racing toward the front to evacuate two civilians as incoming artillery fire engulfed their village.

“It was a heavy situation today. I had to evacuate people under shell fire,” says Ivan Subotin, a well-known local fireman and founder of a volunteer rescue organization, started in 2020, called Search Donbas.

Russian advances along this southeastern corner of the front line – accompanied by an apparent Russian strategy of reducing to rubble villages and towns before seizing them – mean that Mr. Subotin’s workload increases by the day.

“I have been through a huge number of evacuations,” says Mr. Subotin, who the day before was busy putting out brush fires sparked by extreme heat in Myrnohrad, a coal mining town in eastern Ukraine.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian firefighter Ivan Subotin works to put out a fire during an extreme heat wave, in Myrnohrad, Ukraine, July 20, 2024.

“Of course, some people evacuate with good advance time, get their things, and it is more orderly,” says Mr. Subotin. “But there are also those who just leave under shelling.

“We pick them up; you see them stinking, sweating after spending a few weeks in a cellar; they haven’t seen daylight for some time, and have just one plastic bag [of belongings] left,” he says. “When you take them to a city with electricity and water, they are shocked.”

The situation was tranquil a few months ago during initial evacuations, he says, “but now people are panicking and did not expect the front line to move [toward them] so quickly. There are Russian drones everywhere; people are running around with their eyes wide open.

“The war has become difficult; I don’t have a drone-jamming antenna,” Mr. Subotin says. “Even I am scared. The Russians are targeting every car.”

The charity that Mr. Subotin founded with three friends has expanded into a 50-person-strong organization. Volunteers don’t stop at rescuing people. On one memorable occasion they saved eight cows, an accomplishment that required walking 12 miles to safety under extremely hazardous conditions.

But why take such risks, even if to save the lives of your fellow citizens? For Mr. Subotin, the answer is about not just helping out, but also providing a ray of hope to Ukrainians after 2 1/2 years of devastating conflict since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

“This is important, that you are helping people believe in something good again,” he says.

In July that ethos earned him his seventh award of official recognition, in the form of a medal with a white cross – a Cross of Civic Merit. It was given to him by the military administration of Pokrovsk – the city just west of Myrnohrad – which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says has become the primary target of Russia’s summer offensive.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian firefighter Ivan Subotin, founder of a group that evacuates civilians threatened by Russian advances, holds the medal awarded to him for exceptional public service.

As the Russians advance on this front, Mr. Subotin has told people to evacuate as soon as they can, especially if they have children, who can be very easily traumatized by a rushed evacuation, he says. But many remain reluctant.

“A lot of people say, ‘I will just wait this out.’ I hear the same thing everywhere; then when it gets bad, they panic,” he says. “I tell them it is stupid to ‘wait this out’; what does that even mean?”

Those rescued are most often grateful, though some act as though they are entitled to evacuation, no matter the risks to volunteer rescuers, says Mr. Subotin. Donations have dropped off somewhat, he adds, “because people have less, and the war has dragged on,” but Search Donbas has a high level of public trust and a broad contributor base.

Indeed, Mr. Subotin’s local reputation is such that, when the firefighter was putting out the brush fire, a local pastor, Oleksandr Radin, who was helping put out the flames, asked him, “Do you know Ivan Subotin?”

Mr. Radin says he was pleasantly surprised to meet him for the first time, amid the swirl of smoke and ash from the fire.

“He’s a great man,” he says.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian firefighters return to their truck after putting out a fire during an extreme heat wave.

Likewise, one member of Mr. Radin’s church, military chaplain Vasyl Kovalov, recalled with gratitude how Mr. Subotin had put out a fire in his house just a month after the Russian invasion.

But is the firefighting rescuer optimistic about the state of the war in Ukraine?

“It’s hard to answer this question,” Mr. Subotin says. “One day you wake up and you are full of energy; you know you will evacuate some people. But then you come to those people and see the whole village is on fire, everything is burning, people are in misery, they are traumatized, and you just think, ‘What’s going to happen to my house?’

“You come back home after such an evacuation, [and] you have sediment in your heart and your soul, and it pushes you down. And you have only one question: ‘What’s going to happen next? What’s in the future?’” he says.

His answer?

“Just the work,” says Mr. Subotin. “We have to do what we do. You wake up every morning; you know you have a job here; you have people to help.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story.

AP

Dr. Rachel Maguru does rounds at the general hospital in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Aug. 14, after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreaks in Congo and elsewhere in Africa a global emergency.

Since the reopening of societies following the recent pandemic, concerns have lingered that the world is unprepared for a similar health crisis. Yet lessons from COVID-19 are now shaping the response to the latest global alert. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared a global emergency based on its analysis of a new strain of mpox in Africa.

The WHO has called for assistance to those afflicted countries that may lack the means to contain the outbreak. The world needs “a tailored and comprehensive response, with communities at the centre, as always,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

His words indicate the need for more than medical supplies and personnel. As health workers know well, dealing with the public fear of a disease requires calmness, honesty, and empathy. The risks of mpox should not be overestimated or underestimated, said Magnus Gisslén, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, after his country recorded one of the first cases of the strain to emerge beyond Africa. Along with other European officials, he rejected calls for a travel ban to avoid stigmatizing other countries or their traveling citizens.

In Africa, officials have so far displayed a greater degree of transparency. During past health crises, such as the one surrounding HIV, governments were often reluctant to publicly admit a problem that would require a change in social traditions. Now, more officials are concerned with helping communities work through social stigmas that might create resistance toward professional care. Officials in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, for example, say they are working together to coordinate caring responses to workers who regularly cross their borders. The outbreak has also renewed attention on the humanitarian crises in Congo, where more than 500,000 people languish in refugee camps from war.

In a “toolkit” for dealing with mpox, a WHO report urged the need for empathy to be at the center. That means “establishing and maintaining trust with affected communities, addressing the emotional needs of those affected, ... [and] reducing stigma and fear,” it noted. In any pandemic, loving care can be a powerful antidote – and serve as a first responder.