Human Rights Day Breakfast: 12/4/2007

You are Cordially Invited to Our Human Rights Day Breakfast

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
 
 Trinitarian Congregational Church
 
 54 Walden Street, Concord
 
 7:30–9:00 am

If we look around the world today, there are many places where human
 
 rights are being ignored – too many. From the forced relocation of
 
 civilians in South Darfur by the Sudanese government, to the
 
 punishment of a sexual abuse victim in Saudi Arabia, to the brutal
 
 attacks on Buddhist monks in Burma, violations of human rights
 
 against individuals and groups are far too common.

Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human
 
 Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was issued on
 
 December 10, 1948 to set a benchmark of human rights standards that
 
 should be met at a minimum. In part the Declaration reads: “Everyone
 
 can claim the following rights, despite a different sex, a different
 
 skin color, speaking a different language, thinking different things,
 
 believing in another religion, owning more or less, being born in
 
 another social group, or coming from another country.”

Setting aside one day to focus on the issues of human rights is
 
 supposed to make us look not only at the more obvious and appalling
 
 erosion of rights around the world, but also to check in our own
 
 backyards for ways to safeguard them here at home. Human rights
 
 groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are
 
 good sources of information on these issues as they play out in the
 
 United States: the ban on religious books in prisons, the convictions
 
 of the “Jena Six”, and the growing call for prisoners with certain
 
 mental illnesses to be kept out of solitary confinement, are all
 
 examples of how our human rights are at risk individually and
 
 collectively. Celebrating Human Rights Day allows us to focus on
 
 our local community while remaining mindful of how human rights are
 
 matters of life and death in other parts of the world.

The Concord-Carlisle Human Rights Council will hold its annual Human
 
 Rights Day Breakfast on Tuesday December 4, at 7:30 am at the
 
 Trinitarian Congregational Church on Walden St in Concord. The topic
 
 being presented this year is ‘Uncovering Concord’s Black History’.

Did you know that there are many houses in Concord that were stops on
 
 the Underground Railroad? That the Alcotts, Thoreaus and Emersons
 
 were all very active Abolitionists? That the sisters, aunts, mothers
 
 and wives of those famous Transcendentalists formed the ‘Concord
 
 Female Anti-Slavery Society’? That Harriet Tubman, Frederick
 
 Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison all visited and spoke in Concord?
 
 That some of our streets are named after black residents – Jennie
 
 Dugan, Brister Freeman?

Our aim is to construct a physical trail loop that includes many of
 
 these places, along with the re-packaging of the book, ‘Black History
 
 in Concord’, written by Barbara Elliott and Janet Jones of the
 
 Concord Public Schools in 1978. We hope to make it more available,
 
 both in the schools and in the community, so that it can be not only
 
 a teaching tool, but a guide to the trail itself.

All are welcome at the Breakfast, and there is no charge for any C-
 
 CHRC event.