Declaration of Human Rights:

• Human Rights - Everyone by virtue of their humanity, is entitled to certain rights

• Declared in the West through:

  • Magna Carta

  • English Bill of Rights

  • US Constitution and Bill of Rights

  • Declaration of the Rights of Man

  • UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Eleanor Roosevelt:

• Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in October 1884

• She was born into a life of privilege but had a rough childhood

• she was an orphan at 14 and was sent to boarding school

• she met her husband, Franklin, in 1902 and got married in 1905

• after she found out he had an affair with his assistant, she still supported him, even when he lost mobility in his legs

• Eleanor started getting involved in the League of Women voters, and the Democratic party

• She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of WWII refugees

• Following her husbands death in 1945, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the remaining 17 years of her life

• She helped create the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later become the first chair of the UN commission on human rights

Apartheid:

• In 1913, the law forced Black people onto reserves and prohibited sharecropping

• The National Party came to power in 1948, enforced apartheid (racial segregation) policies, with the goal of decreasing the power of the black majority

• Knowing black people outnumbered them, they sought to opress them through the use of the law

• more than 80% of the land was given to white minoirty, it was forcibyt taken from blacks and sold to whites at a low price

• non-whites had to carry documentation and couldn’t participate in the government

Opposition to Apartheid:

• It began through non-violent methods which didn’t work, so it led to violent methods and retaliation

• Violent government crackdowns drew attention in the news

• The UN denounced apartheid as a policy

• The US and UK brought economic sanctions against South Africa in1985

• Blacks were enfrancised in 1994, the next election government was a non-white coalition

American Civil Rights:

• Because of Americas recent history with slavery and laws at the times still reflected institutionalized racism, many Black Americans began to push back and protest to gain access to their human rights

• the 1950s saw the greatest advent: The Television

• Heroic Figures: Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks

• The 1950s were an era of consensus. Most people agreed on American values: individualism, respect for private property, and belief in equal oppurtinity

• It wasn’t a period of expanding opportunities for African Americans, half of Black families lived in poverty

• Their educational opportunities were severely limited by sub-standard segregated schools. Desegrating schools was a key goal of the civil rights movement and started in California