Fundamental Freedoms: Dr. Allida Black on Human Rights in Our Time

“[T]he advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.” – preamble to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” 1948

Scholar and social activist Dr. Allida M. Black does not hesitate when asked what the most pressing issue of our time is.

“Human rights,” said Dr. Black, executive editor at the fdr4freedoms Digital Initiative and a partner with Facing History and Ourselves on the 2010 resource guide Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In a series of visits to Facing History classrooms and teacher workshops across the country this winter, Dr. Black is hoping to shed light on the history of human rights worldwide and the impact of that history today for students and educators. On January 26, Dr. Black stops in Denver, Colorado, followed by a spring visit to Cleveland, Ohio. While her visits are on one level a history lesson, on another they are a call to action. In teaching about choosing to participate and the power of upstanders in history, Dr. Black hopes to get kids and teachers on board for that world-changing journey.

“If young people get it – and they really honest to God get it and understand the work that it takes [to make change] – there’s not a force on the planet that can stop them,” said Dr. Black in a telephone interview from her home office in Arlington, Virginia, fresh from a December visit to the Facing History School in New York City. “I think students need to be engaged in this material in kindergarten. If we don’t get to them by high school, a lot of their courage will be stamped out, their dreams will be forgotten, and they will turn into something that is confining and disappointing rather than something that is empowering and courageous.”

At the Facing History School, Dr. Black led a group of 10th graders in a discussion about human rights and how those rights are – or are not – carried out in various parts of the world today. The lesson piggybacked on history teacher Lisa Dadush’s unit on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“We need to figure out how we came to have those rights and how we’re living in this century because of those rights – how we’re able to express ourselves and live without fear,” student Natalie Ruiz said following the visit.

Ms. Dadush could see the light bulbs going off for students almost immediately. “The conversation was an important one for them because they started realizing their rights as humans and citizens,” she said. “It was the first time they were realizing that even though you’re not seen as an adult, you still have rights.”

Dr. Black credits her own teachers with setting off those light bulbs when she was in high school. At the private, all-girls school Dr. Black attended in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, history meant maps and memorizing facts. “You’d get to the part where something happened, but then you just skipped over all the debate and the struggle. You skipped over the ‘Why?’ to get to the ‘What?’ That, to me, was frustrating,” Dr. Black said. Bucking the school’s traditional approach to the subject, two of her history teachers loaded Dr. Black up with extra readings and assigned her independent studies outside of class. “I owe them a great deal,” Dr. Black said. “They challenged the powers that be to say, ‘It’s important to answer a student’s curiosity. It’s important to be an active citizen.’”

That experience has stayed with her and today she works to educate learners of all ages – especially teachers. “In some ways I believe it’s more important to reach teachers than to reach students because if the teachers get it, they can create a classroom environment of true learning, debate, and painful examination,” she said. “I think teachers are at the frontlines of democracy and if teachers don’t get this then the classroom is a complacent place. And complacency is the handmaiden of defeat.”

As a scholar who has made a career out of studying Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Black – who refers to the first lady as Eleanor or simply ER - has learned a thing or two about avoiding defeat. In the forward to Fundamental Freedoms, part of Facing History’s Making History series, Dr. Black wrote: “ER devoted…her life to the creation of a culture of human dignity at home and abroad. She believed that no one’s rights were safe unless everyone’s rights were respected. She argued repeatedly that ‘human rights began in small places close to home,’ that these rights were political and civil rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights, and that their implementation required ‘concerted citizen action.’”

Dr. Black’s current position, which she assumed in July 2011, puts her in charge of a free, multi-media digital educational resource that will launch in conjunction with the opening of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York this fall. “This project represents a pioneering effort to transform a significant public space, the Four Freedoms Park, into a twenty-first century classroom of history,” Dr. Black said. “[It] will bring understanding about…the Roosevelt legacy to all park visitors in an unprecedented way. It will also contain engaging narratives, timelines, and historical audio and video footage, as well as films for use by teachers, students, and the general public.”

“If you look at where we are now and compare that with where we were in 1948, it is a march of historic proportions,” Dr. Black said as she reflected on the lasting impact of universal human rights. “It’s the progress women have made. It’s the progress people of color have made. It’s the fact that my partner and I, who have been together 20 years, can get married in February. That is revolutionary. It is the fact that the vast majority of Americans today can look past religious bias,” she continued. “Look at Kosovo. Look at South Africa post-apartheid. Look at Liberia where Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman democratically elected president in the history of Africa.

“You can either say, ‘The world sucks’ and you can get complacent, or you can say, ‘We’ve come a long way. We still have a long way to go, but let’s work together and see how we can go forward.’ And that’s what human rights is,” Dr. Black concluded. “It’s going forward. It’s not easy, but it is a journey that changes the world.”

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Learn more about the workshop Fundamental Freedoms: A Workshop Exploring Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Denver on January 26 and RSVP today!

Purchase a copy of Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This article was written by Facing History’s Julia Rappaport. For questions or tips on what Facing History is doing in your community, email her at Julia_Rappaport@facing.org.