Broad-based humanitarian change requires not just the work of human rights organizations, but of people helping people, says Larry Cox, the new executive director of Amnesty International USA.
Involving regular people in the fight for human rights is critical, especially during this time of heightened concern about terrorism.
"Human rights offers a different vision of how you can protect people, and that is to bring to justice those who are guilty of violent attacks while working to ensure all human rights, including economic, social, and political rights," Cox says. "The fulfillment of these rights protects us all by addressing the forces that typically attract people to become terrorists."
To create such change, Cox envisions a renewed emphasis on traditional grassroots organizing to bring about changes in public policy. In college and then as an antiwar worker in Paris in the 1960s, he learned first-hand many of the organizing techniques he envisions reviving at Amnesty, such as letter-writing and phone campaigns, engaging community groups, and organizing protests and marches.
[Excerpt of an article by Jane Savitt Tennen, Philanthropy Journal]
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