Greetings from the co-Chairs of the Concord-Carlisle Human Rights Council: please join us Monday, December 1st at 7:30AM at the Trinitarian Congregational Church on Walden Street for our annual CCHRC annual Human Rights Day Breakfast. We are pleased to announce the recipient of our biannual Climate for Freedom Award – Gaining Ground. All are invited to hear Joe Rigali, Chairman of the Board of Gaining Ground, who will receive the award and be the keynote speaker.
The quiet work of Gaining Ground is symbolic of how we can work to make the world a better place. It may not feel this way with the on-going battle against injustice and inequity, but through local efforts and small steps, we are gaining ground.
It seems that every time we read the news, there are stories of human rights violations. We are flooded by news of wars in the Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, of ISIS and Ebola, of botched executions and the shooting of unarmed civilians. However when despair threatens to overwhelm us, it is good to step back and look at the global progress made in the on-going campaign for human rights. Despite hardships and obstacles, more people are pulling themselves out of dire poverty. Today more people world-wide have the right to vote than ever before. Despite ongoing wars and AIDs, life expectancy has never been longer. We can now connect with people all over the globe with a few clicks on the computer. We are making slow but steady progress on racial and gender issues. On October 21st, Wyoming, the state where gay college student matthew Shepard was brutally killed in 1998, became the 32nd state to legalize same sex marriage. We are gaining ground.
In the words of the great Concordian, Senator George Frisbie Hoar, spoken over a hundred years ago, “I believe that, whatever clouds may darken the horizon, the world is growing better, that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today.” If you are planning ahead, our annual Martin Luther King, Jr. concert will be held at the Fenn School at 7pM on Wednesday January 14th, featuring the Willard Chorus, Fenn Treble Chorus, Boston Children’s Chorus and more, and the Holocaust Memorial will be April 26th, 2015 at 7:30pM in the Concord Town House. We hope to see you the morning of December 1st.
Rob Morrison & Ronni Olitsky Concord-Carlisle Human Rights Council co-Chairs www.cchumanrights.org
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