When Kaneésha Sonée Johnson (above, center) started fifth grade in Hawthorne, California, she saw that the African-American kids in her class often taunted the school's Asian kids. And the tougher kids went a lot further, bullying and tormenting the kids from Asian families. Kaneésha, an African American, thought that was wrong, so this one small girl broke ranks.

She began making friends with kids who couldn't speak English, helping them with their homework, teaching them the ropes, and telling other kids to lay off them.

“I just decided to, because I know how it feels when people laugh at you,” Kaneésha explains. “That old poem says, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me,’ but some words do hurt.” When Kaneésha herself was tormented by the bullies for standing against them, she cried—at home, where they couldn’t see her—but she held her ground.

And one small girl succeeded, even ending de facto segregation on the playground. After seeing Blacks and Asians choose only each other for their teams, Kaneésha talked them all into playing together—integrating the class teams. And in class, she got them working together, seeing each other as real kids like themselves, not African Americans and “those foreigners.”