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Lillian Bloodworth, now 92, says when she first started to give blood, other donors would read her name tag and ask if that was really her name or if it was a gimmick for the blood bank.
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Ruth Owens worked for four decades as a nurse in Tennessee, inspiring family to go into the profession. "I love people, and I love to help them — physically, mentally, spiritually," Owens said.
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In 1970, New York letter carrier Tom Germano walked out with fellow postal workers across the U.S. to demand better pay. The public was supportive, he said. "You knew them. ... We shared their lives."
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Olivia Hooker advocated for the military to open its doors to women of color. But even after policies started to change, "nobody seemed to be joining," she said. So she decided to join herself.
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At StoryCorps, Eddie Chang tells his daughter Tria how he finds comfort in the pain surrounding her mother's death: "When you stop grieving is when you start losing contact with the person."
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Kate Quartfordt loved to sing the blues. When her father unexpectedly arranged for her to join a band on stage, she panicked at first. But that moment inspired her to be bold about taking chances.
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As kids, Raymond and Derrick Storms were not close. They had to confront anger, mortality — and each other — in order to reclaim their brotherhood.
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Six-year old Jerry Morrison is obsessed with space — a love that intensifies when talking to his uncle, a NASA engineer. "I learned from you a lot," Morrison told him. "More than I could imagine."
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As a teenager growing up in Alabama, Lewis wrote a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. during a budding civil rights movement. In a letter back, King invited the 18-year-old to join the cause.
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Russell King, a cabaret performer who has a drag character, tells a former music teacher she helped him feel comfortable being himself. "[H]ow fortunate I was to have influences like you," he says.