October 10, 2025

The honor recognizes Sun's work as an activist and as a novelist. The Dandelion Insurrection has thousands of readers of its "startlingly prescient" fictional movement against a dictatorship in the United States. The award-winning Ari Ara Series for younger readers is a much-loved set of fantasy novels with themes of peace and justice. 

"To be added to this series in this exact moment is not just an honor for my work thus far…it’s a rallying cry for the times," said Sun. "These are the people who never gave up on the vision of a more just, respectful, compassionate, and peaceful nation. In the belly of the beast, in the dark nights of this country’s soul, in the bleak hours long before the dawn of change, these are the people who stood up and started marching toward the gleaming sunlight of justice. Like Dr. King, they took their times toward the mountaintop on the conviction and faith that we would get there. Many of them did not live to see these changes, but they lived in such a way that those who followed–all of us–would. It is our task now to honor their lives with our own. We must all be Americans Who Tell The Truth."

Writes Sara Knox on Americans Who Tell the Truth:

"Rivera Sun’s passion for her work as an author and an activist inspires others to become peacebuilders and changemakers. She writes about nonviolence, organizes protests and rallies that bring people together, and offers nationwide training for nonviolent movements. And she is just getting started. 

"Sun claims that her first nonviolent action was picking potatoes on her family’s organic farm in northern Maine when she was a young teen, as this is when she became interested in joining the local food movement. Later Sun attended Bennington College on a writing scholarship and then ran her own dance company for seven years in California. In 2011, during Occupy Wall Street’s efforts to address inequality, Sun connected to the power of nonviolent action and became inspired to write fiction around this theme.

"Knowing she wanted to write about nonviolent action, Sun researched and read about different moments in history when the power of people peacefully taking a stand generated positive change. She studied people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and began to discover the depth and breadth of nonviolent movements. She also watched closely to see what her nieces and nephews were reading, and learned how to write compelling fiction about heroes who act with peace and love instead of violence." 

Michael Pollan '76 is also among past honorees of Americans Who Tell the Truth.