{"id":1192,"date":"2021-11-05T18:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T22:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/?page_id=1192"},"modified":"2026-02-13T07:33:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:33:55","slug":"human-rights-in-the-united-states-a-conversation-series","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/events\/human-rights-in-the-united-states-a-conversation-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Places, Close to Home Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For many people, &#8220;human rights&#8221; connotes the struggle for freedom and dignity in other countries, often in the context of major geopolitical or ideological contests. But that misses the essential wisdom and power of the human rights idea: that respect for the inherent dignity of every individual\u2014and protection of their human rights\u2014begins in &#8220;small places, close to home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Eleanor Roosevelt, a chief architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, put it this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home\u2014so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned\u00a0citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1268 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/11\/eleanor-roosevelt-human-rights-gettyimages-96813261-e1637700248891.jpg\" alt=\"Eleanor Roosevelt UDHR\" width=\"900\" height=\"675\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To explore the relevance of the human rights framework to rights struggles &#8220;close to home,&#8221; the Human Rights Institute is launching a series of conversations about systemic rights challenges in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many people, &#8220;human rights&#8221; connotes the struggle for freedom and dignity in other countries, often in the context of major geopolitical or ideological contests. But that misses the essential [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7115,"featured_media":0,"parent":7,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1192","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7313,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1192\/revisions\/7313"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/human-rights-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}