Human Rights: Then-Now-Forever

When Eleanor Roosevelt was a child, she was referred to as an “ugly duckling.” When both of her parents died, she suffered through many years of loneliness. Maybe that’s why she became such a pillar of strength advocating human rights.

During the sad and frightening times of the Depression, she made Americans feel that someone cared and would try to help. Even though the president didn’t always support her agenda, she worked for the cause of African Americans,  youth, the poor, and the unemployed.

After her husband’s death in 1945, President Truman made her U.S. Delegate to the United Nations.  When the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948,  the delegates rose in a standing ovation for her since it was her project.

Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated her life to international cooperation. When she passed away, it was said about her that,  “She would rather light candles than curse the darkness, and her glow warmed the world.”

She lived a life that demonstrated making a difference.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college she attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” — Eleanor Roosevelt