Our Mission:
The Phillip and Sala Burton Center for Human Rights at the Presidio National Park is a nonprofit human rights research, education and training center dedicated to the legacy of Phillip and Sala Burton. Our mission is to promote international human rights, labor and environmental norms to enhance economic and social justice locally, nationally and internationally. |
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." |
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An incredible youth website about education: www.usandtheworld.org
Learn more about HR 3359 - the U.S. and the World Education Act
legislative updates can be found at www.thomas.gov
The Global Environmental Hall of Fame - a proposal for a living institution embodying the heritage, ideals, and concerns of the American people for the earth’s ecosystem... download brochure here. Read more here.
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| "Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so 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 concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." - Eleanor Roosevelt |
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| “And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter human rights - - the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation - - the right to breathe air as nature provided it - - the right of future generations to a healthy existence?Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many of us think it is unreal. But that is dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable - - that mankind is doomed - - that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.” - President John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963 Commencement Speech at American University |
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| “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.” - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 6, 1941 State of the Union Speech |
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