THE MAKING HISTORY SERIES FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights With a Foreword by Allida M. Black & Mary Jo Blinker, the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project A Facing History and Ourselves Publication Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. For more information about Facing History and Ourselves, please visit our website at www.facinghistory.org. Copyright © 2010 by Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Facing History and Ourselves® is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Offi ce. Cover art photos: Eleanor with the UDHR Poster, UN Photo. The following photos are © Bettmann/Corbis: Roosevelt, Cook and Dickerman; Visiting Infantile Paralysis Victims; Eleanor at the UN General Assembly; Eleanor with Marian Anderson; Eleanor in the Coal Mine; and Eleanor and Franklin. To order classroom copies, please fax a purchase order to 617-232-0281 or call 617-232-1595 to place a phone order. To download a PDF of this publication, please visit www.facinghistory.org/fundamentalfreedoms. ISBN-13: 978-0-9819543-2-5 Headquarters 16 Hurd Road Brookline, MA 02445 (617) 232-1595 www.facinghistory.org ABOUT FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES Facing History and Ourselves is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an exam ination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote a more humane and informed citizenry. As the name Facing History and Ourselves implies, the organization helps teachers and their students make the essential connections between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives, and offers a framework and a vocabu lary for analyzing the meaning and respon- sibility of citizenship, and the tools to recognize bigotry and indifference in their own worlds. Through a rigorous examination of the failure of democracy in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, and the steps leading to the Holo- caust, along with other examples of hatred, collective violence, and genocide in the past century, Facing History and Ourselves provides educators with tools for teaching history and ethics, and for helping their students learn to combat prejudice with compassion, indifference with participation, myth and misinformation with knowledge. Believing that no classroom exists in isolation, Facing History and Ourselves offers programs and materials to a broad audience of students, parents, teach- ers, civic leaders, and all those who play a role in the education of young people. Through significant higher education partnerships, Facing History and Ourselves also reaches and impacts teachers before they enter their classrooms. By studying the choices that led to critical episodes in history, students learn how issues of identity and membership, ethics and judgment, have meaning today and in the future. Facing History and Ourselves’ resource books pro- vide a meticulously researched, yet flexible, structure for exam ining complex events and ideas. Educators can select appropriate read ings and draw on additional resources available online, or from our comprehensive lending library. Our foundational resource book, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, embodies a sequence of study that begins with iden- tity—first, individual identity, and then group and national identities, with their definitions of membership. From there, the program examines the failure of democracy in Germany, and the steps leading to the Holocaust—the most documented case of twentieth-century indiffer ence, dehumanization, hatred, racism, antisemitism, and mass murder. It goes on to explore difficult ques- tions of judgment, memory, and legacy, and the necessity for responsible par- ticipation to prevent injus tice. Facing History and Ourselves then returns to the theme of civic participation to examine stories of individuals, groups, and nations who have worked to build just and inclusive communities, and whose stories illuminate the courage, compassion, and political will that are needed to protect democracy today, and in generations to come. Other examples in which civic dilemmas test democracy, such as the Armenian Genocide and the U.S. civil rights movement, are presented to expand and deepen the con- nection between history and the choices we face today—and in the future. Facing History and Ourselves has offices or resource centers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as in-depth partnerships in Rwanda, South Africa, and Northern Ireland. Facing History and Ourselves’ outreach is global, with educators trained in more than 80 countries, and delivery of our resources through a website accessed worldwide with online content delivery, a program for international fellows, and a set of NGO part- nerships. By convening conferences of scholars, theologians, educators, and journalists, Facing History and Ourselves’ materials are kept timely, rel- evant, and responsive to salient issues of global citizenship in the twenty-first century. For more than 30 years, Facing History and Ourselves has challenged stu- dents and educators to connect the complexities of the past to the moral and ethical issues of today. They explore democratic values and consider what it means to exercise one’s rights and responsibilities in the service of a more humane and compassionate world. They become aware that “little things are big”—that seemingly minor decisions can have a major impact, and change the course of history. For more about Facing History and Ourselves, visit our website at www.facinghistory.org. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Primary Writer: Dan Eshet From its inception, Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Uni- versal Declaration of Human Rights has been a collaborative effort. Facing History and Ourselves extends gratitude to all who contributed to the devel- opment of this publication. We would like to thank Jill Garling and Thomas Wilson for their generous support of the Making History Series. It is a great pleasure to thank Allida M. Black, project director at the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project and professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, as well as her staff. Allida’s affectionate writings about Eleanor shaped our views of “ER” as an independent political activist and as one of the most progressive and influential thinkers of her generation. Sam Gilbert, our long-time edi- tor, spent many hours improving the style of this text. We thank him for his passionate work on this project. We would also like to thank Daniel Cohen, a dear friend and professor of history at Rice University, who read the text several times and whose advice and thoughtful discussions, shaped not only the text of this book, but also the way we thought about and approached the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Carol Hillman, chair of the Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt Project at Val-Kill, also made valuable contributions to the discussions of Eleanor’s role in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Special thanks to Mary Ann Glendon, who advised at critical stages during development, especially around issues of cultural differences as they played out in the UDHR drafting process. We thank the staff of the Frank- lin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library for their patience, advice, and coopera- tion throughout the research process. We also want to thank Sharon Linden- burger who reviewed the manuscript in its later drafts and enhanced its style. We also want to thank the design and editorial teams at Brown Publishing Network for their solid judgment and devotion in producing this resource. While writing this book, Facing History and Ourselves has been fortunate to benefit from the perspective, insight, and passion of many of its staff mem- bers. We owe credit for the inspiration to read about Eleanor Roosevelt to Margot Stern Strom. This book bears the marks of her passionate interest in Eleanor’s life, actions, and ideas. We owe many kinds of thanks to Adam Strom for his broad perspective and deep understanding of human rights, and for his careful reading of every word written. His knowledge of civil rights history kept our research honest and our writing balanced and fair. We also deeply thank Dan Eshet, primary writer of the text, for his dedication to this project. He collected ideas from a wide range of scholars and many fields and then crafted them into a comprehensive narrative of which we are proud. We are indebted also to Marty Sleeper, a veteran educator, for his insights and deep understanding of the challenges America faced during the 1930s and 1940s. Marc Skvirsky dutifully read all the drafts of this book; thanks to his suggestions, the book is deeper and broader in its scope than it would have been otherwise. Many thanks to Elisabeth Fieldstone Kanner, whose experience as a teacher and curriculum writer helped make this publication more accessible and easy to use in classroom settings. Nicole Breaux supervised the first half of the project’s life, while Eva Radding managed its final stages. Jen Gray brought the text to life through her photo research and permissions work. Ilana Klar- man edited parts of the text. We would like to thank Catherine O’Keefe and Maria Hill, our publishing colleagues, who managed the design and printing of this book. Dimitry Anselme, Mary Johnson, Adrianne Billingham Bock, Milton Reynolds, Steve Becton, and Phredd MatthewsWall contributed con- structive criticism and commentary during the writing of this book, and their suggestions influenced many aspects of the development of the text. A special acknowledgment is due to our grant writer, Jan Stanwood, for her dedicated work to fund this project.