Tag: universal human rights month

Steel Closets: Setting The Scene

The following is an excerpt from Anne Balay’s Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers. Even as substantial legal and social victories are being celebrated within the gay rights movement, much of working-class America still exists outside the current narratives of gay liberation. In Steel Closets, Anne Balay draws on oral history interviews with forty gay, lesbian, and transgender… Continue Reading Steel Closets: Setting The Scene

Tears, Fire, and Blood: No Premature Independence, 1941–1951

The following is an excerpt from James H. Meriwether’s Tears, Fire, and Blood: The United States and the Decolonization of Africa. In the mid-twentieth century, the struggle against colonial rule fundamentally reshaped the world and the lives of the majority of the world’s population. Decolonization, Black and Brown freedom movements, the establishment of the United Nations and NATO, an exploding… Continue Reading Tears, Fire, and Blood: No Premature Independence, 1941–1951

Civil Rights Unionism: Those Who Were Not Afraid

The following is an excerpt from Robert R. Korstad’s Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South. Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These… Continue Reading Civil Rights Unionism: Those Who Were Not Afraid

Universal Human Rights Month: A Recommended Reading List

Nobody’s free until everybody’s free. Fannie Lou Hamer December marks the annual celebration of Universal Human Rights Month. The observance of this month began in 1948 when the U.N. wrote a document called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document was created after World War II and was used to “properly define what human rights would be protected universally”.… Continue Reading Universal Human Rights Month: A Recommended Reading List