This morning, while 50 of their friends faced another day in jail, 45 more Americans were arrested as part of an ongoing sit-in at the White House. The DC Park Police have been telling organizers of the sit-in that they were keeping the first wave of demonstrators in jail to deter people from taking part in the civil disobedience. In fact, the arrests have just the opposite effect.

John Chandley, Dan Choi and Bill McKibben are spending tonight in jail again so that the government can send a message to you on behalf of the oil companies. They don’t want you to come to Washington for the next two weeks and overburden the DC jail system by throwing your body upon the gears, to quote Mario Savio. They hope you will look at what is happening to John and Dan and Bill and be intimidated and discouraged.

There were 45 more people today who refused to be discouraged. They watched what happened to Dan and John and Bill and were willing to get arrested anyway, in the hope of “lighting a fire” under the world.

Are you discouraged?

For the third time since the popular uprising in Egypt has begun, crowds completely filled Tahrir Square on Tuesday, as protesters found renewed energy and they resolved not to leave until President Hosni Mubarak steps down.

A sit-in at the Parliament Building also has begun.

Four undocumented college students are celebrating the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education by staging a sit-in outside the offices of Arizona Senator John McCain

On the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, James Parks interviews Franklin McCain, one of the four students who refused to leave a whites-only Greensboro lunch counter until they were served, sparking key civil rights legislation.