My husband Jerry Dunfey and I are going to 10 Downing Street tonight for an event Sarah Brown is hosting for the Donald Woods Foundation, a philanthropic development organization. Woods was a very close friend of ours and had to escape from apartheid South Africa after he broke the story of Steve Biko’s murder. Jerry is a Founding Patron of the foundation with Wendy Woods and Ntsiki Biko, respectively the widows of Donald Woods and Steve Biko. Desmond Tutu, who married us, will be the other special guest at 10 Downing St. To get into the spirit of the connections between the British anti-apartheid movement and the struggle within South Africa, we stopped at the statue of Nelson Mandela that was... more
Human Rights
I attended the preview screening for “Black in America 2, Soledad O’Brien Reports”, a CNN four-hour documentary that premieres on July 22 with “Tomorrow’s Leaders” and July 23 with “Today’s Pioneers.” I encourage you to watch this two-part series as it features extraordinary programs that serve as highly successful and replicable models. While I was inspired by all six, I was particularly touched by an initiative Malaak Compton-Rock started at the Bushwick Brooklyn Salvation Army Community Center called Journey for Change. Thirty children were chosen to participate. First they served their own community and then had a two-week service trip to a South African township. Read the Journey for Change blog to see what these kids have learned and what they... more
I am not surprised by today’s story in The New York Times about Russians not clamoring to see President Obama as people have in other countries. While even the U.S. still has to grapple with zenophobia, closed nations with state-controlled media are even more distrustful of “the other.” My Bubby and Zayde (grandmother and grandfather in Yiddish) escaped the Tsarist pogroms with my then-young uncle Mersh. More recently, we’ve seen how Chenchens, and Ossetians and Abkhazians have been treated by Russia. We have a long way to go in our own country, but at least we have the advantages of an open society where we freely can voice dissent. But I believe whether here or in other nations, ethnic violence is based... more
The first two days were focused on international issues; the third day, with support from the women of the world, was focused on Liberia’s National Plan of Action. Today continues drawing the relationship among national, regional and international efforts to advance women’s rights in all arenas. This morning we had exactly the powerful start needed to make that connection. We saw a production of Speak Truth to Power. Right after the performance, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and presented awards to representatives of the Liberian women’s organizations that had made peace possible and now continue to press for gender equity in every sector of society. I was deeply moved by the gorgeous symmetry of global and national commitment to basic human... more
