Bringing Human Rights to Life at Vermont High Schools & Colleges
Published on November, 46 2019
Susan Marie Frontczak as Eleanor Roosevelt at the People Academy High School in Morrisville, VT. Photo by Bob Ackland.
By Marguerite Adelman
Burlington Branch Leadership Team
From October 8-11, 2019, the Burlington Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) hosted programs on Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) at four Vermont high schools, as well as at Middlebury College and the University of Vermont (UVM).
Two different speakers participated in the programs. At the high schools, the featured presenter was Susan Marie Frontczak of Storysmith, a scholar, playwright, and performer who has presented living history programs around the world. Frontczak portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt and her work on the UDHR. This program reached 1,300 students and teachers at South Burlington HS, Peoples Academy HS, Rice Memorial HS, and Spaulding HS.
Photo: Burlington WILPF members Blanche Wiesen Cook and Marguerite Adelman pose in front of a life-size Eleanor Roosevelt. Photo by Clare Coss.
At the public programs at Middlebury College and UVM, the featured speaker was Dr. Blanche Wiesen Cook, a WILPF member and author of three volumes about Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One 1884–1933 (published 1992); Volume 2, The Defining Years, 1933–1938 (2000); and Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962 (2016). Volume One was awarded the 1992 biography prize from the Los Angeles Times. A New York Times review of the third volume called the entire biography a “rich portrait” of the “monumental and inspirational life of Eleanor Roosevelt.” NPR included the third volume in its “Best Books of 2016.” Dr. Cook’s program reached 120 community members, students, and teachers.
This year marks the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Eleanor Roosevelt’s work chairing the committee that drafted this historic document: a testament to the enduring universality of the values of equality, justice, peace, and human dignity. The UDHR represents a milestone in the history of human rights, setting forth the 30 fundamental human rights that are to be universally protected.
In this time of spreading nationalism and gross violations of human rights across the globe, Eleanor Roosevelt noted that it is necessary for us all to work for human rights and peace. “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.… Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
Many individuals in the United States are unfamiliar with the UDHR. The presentations by Frontczak and Cook helped students and community members learn about, promote, engage, and reflect on human rights with the goal of encouraging everyone to stand up for human rights, every day. As the well-known Bob Marley song puts it: “Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.”
The program was supported in part by the Vermont Humanities Council, American Civil Liberties Union of VT, Amnesty International Champlain Valley, WILPF US, Anne Slade Frey Charitable Trust, Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation, WILPF Burlington, Green Mountain Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, and the Bernard and Sandra Otterman Foundation.
You can view the public program by Dr. Cook online at this link.
For more information, contact me at madel51353@aol.com.
