UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1948)

CONTRIBUTED BY: BLACKPAST

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
 
Article 1.
•    All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.
•    Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.
•    Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

•    No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.
•    No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.
•    Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.
•    All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.
•    Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.
•    No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.
•    Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.
•    (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
•    (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.
•    No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
•    (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
•    (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
•    (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.
•    (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
•    (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
•    (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
•    (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.
•    Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
•    Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
•    (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
•    (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
•    (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.
•    Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
•    (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
•    (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
•    (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.
•    Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
•    (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.
•    (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
•    (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
•    (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.
•    (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
•    (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.
•    Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.
•    (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
•    (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
•    (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.
•    Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

BRITISH WEST INDIAN REGIMENT (BWIR), THE (1915-1918)

CONTRIBUTED BY: VIRGILLO HUNTER

British West Indies Regiment, Amiens Road near Albert, September 1916

Image courtesy Imperial War Museum (Q1201)

On August 4, 1914, Britain joined the Great War. The First World War, 1914-1918, is usually viewed as a predominantly white European conflict. In fact, many Africans, Asians, black Britons, and Caribbeans fought for the British Empire. At the beginning of the war, the British War Office, however, was reluctant to allow blacks to enlist in the British Army, fearing it would create racial tension in the ranks.

By early 1915, the British Colonial Office and War Office, despite their differences on allowing blacks into the British Army, agreed that Britain needed reinforcement from the colonies. With the support of King George V, in April 1915, a West Indian contingent was formed from colonial volunteers who had enlisted.

On October 26, 1915, the British West Indian Regiment (BWIR) was established and made official with Army Order Number Four in 1916. The BWIR was created as a separate unit within the British Army. The regiment mainly attracted men from the Caribbean, particularly from Jamaica. Men from the continent of Africa, from India, and black Britons, who were eager to support “the mother country“ but refused entry into white units of the British Army because of their race, also joined the BWIR. Although the BWIR had 12 battalions, all commanding officers in the regiment were required to be white, and blacks and other men of color did not rise above the rank of sergeant. Nonetheless, by November 1918, the BWIR had recruited over 15,000 men.

By the time the regiment was sent to the front lines in March 1916, the British Army was already engaged in war in Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean.  Black soldiers were rarely given combat assignments, but when given the opportunity to fight, they performed as well as white soldiers. Many of their victories, however, were either downplayed or claimed by white commanding officers and soldiers.

Between 1916 and 1917, soldiers of the BWIR was stationed in France, Egypt, Belgium, West Africa, South Africa, and the Middle East. They spent most of their time during the war doing labor-intensive work such as digging trenches and laying telephone wires. Because of this, unarmed BWIR soldiers were consistently in the line of fire and suffered numerous casualties. The BWIR finally saw combat in Egypt and Palestine in 1917. In September 1918, the 1st and 2nd battalions were instrumental in defeating the Turkish position on the Bahr Ridge in the Jordan Valley.

When World War I ended with the Armistice of November 11, 1918, many demobilized BWIR soldiers returned to the Caribbean, where their presence was met with ambivalence unlike returning white soldiers in Britain. Demobbed BWIR soldiers, however, later led political and independence movements in Jamaica and other colonies.

Although most World War I BWIR service records were destroyed in an air raid during the Second World War, some BWIR soldiers were eventually recognized as war heroes and bestowed military medals.  Two were given the Member of the British Empire (MBE) medals. On June 22, 2017, the African and Caribbean War Memorial was unveiled on Windrush Square in the Brixton section of London to memorialize the African and Caribbean men who fought and the women who volunteered to defend the British Empire.

FREEDOM BANK OF FINANCE (1969-2000)

CONTRIBUTED BY: NATALIE MALLARD

In 1968, a group of businessmen in Portland, Oregon saw the recently founded Bank of Finance in Los Angeles, California as a model for their creating the first black-owned commercial bank in the Pacific Northwest.  The businessmen, with help from Los Angeles, founded the Freedom Bank of Finance, which opened in 1969.

The African American businessmen in Portland included Realtor Venerable F. Booker, restaurateur Roy Granville, grocery-store owner Silas Williams, and dentist Dr. Booker T. Lewis.  All of them felt that a black-owned commercial bank would serve the financial needs of the local black community including providing capital for emerging businesses in the Albina-North Portland district that was home to most of African Americans in the city.  Roy Granville, one of the bank’s founders persuaded Onie B. Granville, his cousin and the founder of the Bank of Finance in Los Angeles, to temporarily move to Portland to help establish the new bank.

The Portland-based Bank of Finance opened on August 4, 1969 after J.F.M. Slate, the Oregon Superintendent of Banks authorized its organization.  The Portland founders and other early investors raised $600,000.00 in stock to finance the new institution.  Onie B. Granville who at the time was still on the board of directors for the Los Angeles based Bank of Finance, agreed to serve temporarily as the first president of the new Portland bank.  Granville along with Booker, Lewis, Williams, and cousin Roy Granville, became the first board members.

The Freedom Bank of Finance was first located at 728 NE Killingsworth Street in Portland.  Shortly after its opening Onie B. Granville returned to Los Angeles and Venerable F. Booker became president of the bank.  The name was changed later that year to the Freedom Bank of Finance, and in 1971 it was relocated to 2737 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. In 1975 the bank was renamed again to American State Bank.

Although it had individual depositors, The Freedom Bank of Portland relied heavily on governmental agencies for much of its working capital. By 1971 the state of Oregon and Multnomah County (where Portland was located) each had $100,000 in interest bearing deposits. For much of the 1970s the bank had an average of $50,000 in Model Cities deposits from the U.S. Government.

By 1989, however, the bank began to experience difficulties. At the end of that year American reported $640,857 in problem loans, or 13.5 percent of its total loans. The average for most banks is 2% and anything over 3%, according to bank analysts, is considered dangerous.

Despite the problem loans, the bank had net profits of $110,448, up 18 percent from $93,666 in 1988. At the end of 1989, American had $1.8 million in equity capital, or 11.8 percent of its assets, a ratio that far exceeded the federal government’s capital requirements.

American State Bank’s success was generally attributed to its longtime president and principal stockholder, Venerable F. Booker who upon nearing his 80th birthday, sold it in 2000 to Albina Community Bank and retired.  Through his prudent fiscal leadership, American State Bank, which Booker called, “the bank that integration built,” survived much longer that similar black or non-black banks throughout the nation.

CAMILLA WILLIAMS (1919-2012)

 CONTRIBUTED BY: HELEN LEICHNER

Operatic soprano Camilla Williams was born October 18, 1919, in Danville, Virginia to Fannie Carey Williams and Cornelius Booker Williams. The youngest of four siblings, Williams began singing at a young age and was performing at her local church by age eight. At age 12, she began taking lessons from a Welsh singing teacher, Raymond Aubrey, but because of Jim Crow laws the lessons had to be conducted in private in Aubrey’s home.

After high school, Williams attended Virginia State College for Negroes, now Virginia State University, in Petersburg, Virginia. She graduated in 1941 with a bachelor’s degree in music education. After graduation, Williams taught 3rd grade and music at a black public school in Danville. In 1943, fellow Virginia State College alumni paid for the gifted singer to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and study under influential voice coach Marion Szekely-Freschl. Williams began touring in 1944 and during one concert in Stamford, Connecticut she met Geraldine Farrar, a respected soprano opera singer and the original star of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s Madame Butterfly. Farrar was so impressed with Williams’ voice that she soon took her under her wing and became her mentor. Farrar even helped Williams to sign a recording contract with RCA Victor and to break into the highest levels of American opera.

In 1946, Williams had her first major role when she played Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at City Opera in New York. While at City Opera, Williams also played the roles of Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliaci, Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème, and the title character in Verdi’s Aida.  Throughout her long career she performed with the Boston Lyric Opera in Massachusetts, the New York Philharmonic, and became the first African American to sing a leading role at the Vienna State Opera in Austria. Although she had a successful career, due to the color of her skin, Williams was often cast to play “exotic” characters and was sometimes forbidden to play leading roles that had been originally written for a “European.”  In 1951, the singer won the role of Bess in the first complete recording of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess.

In 1950, Camilla Williams married New York City civil rights attorney Charles T. Beavers, who worked closely with key activist figures like Malcolm X.  She was also involved with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, she sang the Star Spangled Banner at the White House and then again at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington. Her rendition of the national anthem was the prelude to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech.

In 1977, Williams became the first African American professor appointed to the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. She continued to teach at Indiana until her retirement in 1997. Camilla Williams passed away on January 29, 2012 at her home in Bloomington, Indiana.

HUEY P. NEWTON, “THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION AND GAY LIBERATION MOVEMENTS” (1970)

CONTRIBUTED BY: QUINTARD TAYLOR

On August 15, 1970, Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, gave a speech in New York City where he outlined the Party’s position on two emerging movements at the time, the women’s liberation movement and the gay liberation movement.  Newton’s remarks were strikingly unusual since most conservative, moderate, and radical black organizations remained silent on the issues addressed by these movements.  The speech appears below.

During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements.

Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. I say “whatever your insecurities are” because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.

We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover something that he does not have. So you’re some kind of a threat to him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm.

Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women’s right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society.

And what made them homosexual? Perhaps it’s a phenomenon that I don’t understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of capitalism. I don’t know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants.

That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn’t view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe I’m now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that “even a homosexual can be a revolutionary.” Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.

When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women’s liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they are not.

We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action. If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women’s liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.

We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say “insecurities,” I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process that builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not.

We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms “faggot” and “punk” should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.

We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women’s liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner.