Human Rights A Day

African American Dr. Reginald Weir competes in U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Championship. When a New Yorker named Dr. Reginald Weir signed up to play indoor lawn tennis at a national tournament scheduled for March 11, 1948, it raised no eyebrows. The organizers failed to block him for the simple reason that it never occurred to them that a black man might have the title of a physician. Thus, red-faced officials ended up letting him play, even though blacks at the time were banned from U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Association events. Unfortunately for Weir, however, he lost in the second round to the fellow who won the championship, Bill Talbert. Having broken the race barrier, Weir continued to compete, and in 1952, he and a fellow black player, George Stewart, became the first black men to play in the USLTA national championship. Although both men lost in their first round, they inspired other black pioneers of tennis, perhaps including Arthur Ashe. It was Ashe who won the U.S. Open in 1968, throwing open the gates f

Anti-abortion extremist murders Florida doctor. Despite daily pickets, protests and death threats from anti-abortionists, Dr. David Gunn provided abortion services to women in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. He paid for his courage and defiance with his life on March 10, 1993. That’s the day anti-abortion extremist Michael Griffin responded to what he called “a sign from God” by murdering Gunn outside the Pensacola Florida Women’s Medical Services abortion clinic. The crime fuelled the debate over abortion in the U.S. John Burt, regional director of the anti-abortion organization Rescue America, said, "The use of lethal force was justifiable, provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children." Although Griffin was sentenced to life in prison in 1994 for the murder of Dr. Gunn, doctors performing abortions continued to be killed or wounded by anti-abortion fanatics for several years following Gunn’s death. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Zimbabwe’s rigged election proves a turning point. When the practice of a white minority ruling over a black majority ended in 1980 in Africa’s Rhodesia, the country was renamed Zimbabwe. Initially, the nation’s new president, Robert Mugabe, and his Zanu-PF Party pushed through reforms instrumental in achieving greater fairness across the population. But Mugabe soon turned more tyrant than democratic leader. He oppressed opposition, violated basic human rights and obliterated the freedom of the press for which the country had been renowned. He spoke of turning white-controlled land over to black farmers, but the process was marked by violence, cronyism and a complete disregard for fairness. In the end, most of the land was turned over to the president’s friends and relatives – with disastrous results. Corruption reigned. On March 9, 2002, Mugabe’s election was so heavily rigged that the Opposition Presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai and every country observing the election (except South Africa) declare

Artist Carl Beam receives Governor General’s Award for art. Carl Beam was born the eldest of nine children on the West Bay First Nations (later to be renamed M'chigeeng) reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario on May 24, 1943. Although his white father was killed during World War II, his Ojibway maternal grandfather took a significant interest in his upbringing. In his late 20s, Beam followed in his artist mother’s footsteps by studying at the Kootenay School of Art before further studies at the University of Victoria and then graduate studies at the University of Alberta. His art has been described as telling stories on canvas, with references to time and use of cultural markers. While his art included aboriginal and European culture and commentary, Beam never wanted to be pinned down by labels. He said, “My work is not made for Indian people, but for thinking people. In the global and evolutionary scheme, the difference between people is negligible.” Beam’s work was featured in galleries across Canada. When t

Golda Mabovitz was born in Kiev, Russia on May 3, 1898 and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She married Morris Meyerson before moving to Tel Aviv, which was part of Palestine in 1921. There she became actively involved in the labour movement and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel. Shortly after Israel became independent in 1948, she was named minister of labour, a post she held until 1956. Prime Minister Ben Gurion eventually appointed her foreign minister, a post she held until 1966. Gurion also encouraged her to adopt a more Hebrew-sounding name; she chose Meir, which means “to burn brightly.” After a stint as the Labour Party’s Secretary General on March 7, 1969, Meir was nominated by the party to become Prime Minister of Israel. As Prime Minister, Meir presided over great turmoil and conflict, including an attack by Egypt and Syria during the Yom Kippur War. On October 6, 1973, while Jews were observing their Day of Atonement, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in an attempt to take back occupied terr

U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision outlaws slavery. Dred Scott was a black slave who lived in the slave state of Missouri. In 1846, when Scott’s master moved briefly to Illinois and Wisconsin – both “free states” – before returning to Missouri, Scott saw an opportunity to sue for his freedom. Scott won his case in Missouri, only to have the Missouri Supreme Court overturn the ruling. When the case proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court, seven of the nine justices decided against Scott on March 6, 1857. Scott was not free and could not have the same rights as a white man, they stated, because blacks were “beings of an inferior order.” Justice Roger B. Taney’s decision also stipulated that Negroes could not sue in federal court and had "no rights which any white man was bound to respect." Nor did the court stop there. The judges declared federal laws against slavery to be unconstitutional; the U.S. Congress and territory legislature had no right to ban slavery, they explained. And finally, they argued, becau

U.S. Supreme Court: Black students can attend schools and universities. In the early 1950s, black and white students in many states were governed by policies of “separate but equal,” which meant they would attend separate educational institutions on the guise that they could be equal. When the University of North Carolina was ordered to admit three black students in 1954, it appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s March 5, 1956 ruling upholding the decision rankled other states. Virginia’s governor, Thomas Stanley, said, “A very large proportion of Virginians would want to continue segregation of the races because we believe we can provide a better system of education by doing that." Stanley and other governors unhappy with the Supreme Court’s stance soon devised ways to circumvent the ruling, such as subsidizing white students to attend private schools where racial segregation still thrived. Only years of court fights, protests and activism persuaded the more reluctant states to allow tr

Bertha Wilson becomes first woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. Bertha Wilson was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1923 and earned an MA and teaching diploma from the University of Aberdeen before emigrating to Canada with her husband in 1949. Her desire to attend Dalhousie Law School in Halifax in 1954 was not met with open arms from the dean, Horace E. Read, who told her, “Madam, we have no room here for dilettantes. Why don’t you just go home and take up crocheting?” She persevered, got in and graduated. In 1959, the young lawyer moved to Ontario, where she worked with the Toronto firm of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt. Appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1975, she earned acclaim for decisions on sexual discrimination and human rights. On March 4, 1982 – the same year Canada’s constitution adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Wilson to the Supreme Court of Canada. Men in the legal profession, including Chief Justice Bora Laskin, suggested to the pri

U.S. Supreme Court prohibits communists from teaching in New York schools. At the height of the “red scare” in the United States, a number of laws were passed to prevent anyone with communist sympathies from working in the public service. In the state of New York, the Feinberg Law prohibited people who’d called for a government overthrow to teach. Designed to catch Communist Party members, the law enabled school boards to fire a number of teachers for their political beliefs. But when a group of teachers and parents challenged the law, “Adler vs. the Board of Education of the City of New York” went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 3, 1952, the court upheld the law. Six of the nine judges stressed the importance of shielding students from subversive propaganda pushed by teachers “to whom they look for guidance, authority and leadership." The three dissenting judges stated that the law "turns the school system into a spying project." It would be more than a decade before another Supreme Court dec

Britain allows former Chilean dictator Pinochet to go home without trial for human rights abuses. In June 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet as the country’s commander-in-chief. It was a fateful decision. Just months later, Pinochet seized control of the democratically elected government and Allende was murdered in a military coup. In Pinochet’s subsequent bid to rid the country of left-leaning dissidents, he had thousands of Chileans tortured and murdered until his reign ended in 1990. But for years after, Pinochet carried on as commander-in-chief and created a position for himself of senator-for-life. Although many Chileans, especially those who lost loved ones to his murderous regime, wanted justice, the aging former dictator was granted immunity. His luck changed during a trip to London, England in 1998. After a request by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, Britain chose to place Pinochet under house arrest in London. For 16 months, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and Fra

Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel deported from Canada to prison in Germany. When Ernst Zundel turned 19 in 1958, he moved to Canada to avoid Germany’s military conscription. He married in 1960 and had two sons. While professionally a graphic artist and printer, he published racist and anti-Semitic views under the pseudonym Christof Friendrich. He became involved in politics and at the federal level actually became a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1967 (Pierre Trudeau was chosen). By 1977, he’d started Samisdat Publishers, creating pamphlets such as “The Hitler We Loved and Why” and “Did Six Million Really Die?” Zundel attempted to get a better foothold as a Canadian and applied for citizenship. However, in 1993 the government denied his application and after many appeals, Zundel lost that fight in 2000. During this time, the Canadian Human Rights Commission received a complaint that Zundel’s website was inciting hatred against Jews. Between 1996 and the decision in 2002, and after

European protests prompt resignation of right-wing Austrian leader Joerg Haider from coalition government. Austria’s history is full of far-right political movements, notably the willingness of many Austrians to join Hitler’s Germany prior to World War II. Even after the war, however, the far-right commanded popular support. The country elected former United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim as president in 1986 despite his well-known involvement as First Lieutenant in the German Army during the war. In October 1999, the right-wing Freedom Party won 27 per cent of the popular vote in national elections and a few months later became part of Austria’s coalition government. Joerg Haider, the leader of the Freedom Party, had a history of statements somewhat complimentary toward Austrian and German Nazis, and most Europeans regarded the party as extreme. So Europe’s swift reaction to the Freedom Party’s ascendancy was to condemn Austria in the European Union, downgrade diplomatic ties and freeze bilateral po

American Natives Occupy Wounded Knee, South Dakota for 71 days. In 1968, a number of native Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota created the American Indian Movement (AIM), whose focus was to improve the lives of urban Indians and native Americans’ relations with the federal government generally. AIM members brought attention to their grievances by occupying offices, sponsoring a high-profile road excursion called Trail of Broken Treaties and confronting authorities. At the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, some native leaders were opposed to their tribal president, Richard Wilson, whom they accused of mishandling tribal funds and misusing his authority. These leaders asked AIM for assistance when they unsuccessfully attempted to impeach Wilson in February 1973. About 200 AIM leaders and supporters on their way to Porcupine, South Dakota (on the reservation) stopped at the village of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973, where they took over several buildings, including churches and the trading post

Canada evacuates Japanese Canadians from the West Coast. The moment Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the Canadian government stepped up actions against Canadians of Japanese descent. At first Japanese Canadians were ordered to register with the government, but on August 12, 1941 they were required to carry photo registration cards complete with thumbprint. The paranoia and prejudice continued to escalate with Privy Council Order 1486 giving the government the right to remove all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. A mere two days later, on February 26, 1942, the Canadian minister of justice ordered the removal of all people of “the Japanese race” from the “protected area” of the Pacific coastline. They were to be transported to areas at least 160 kilometres inland. Officials imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew while confiscating all property and valuables from Japanese Canadians. Property was sold and never returned, ostensibly to provide funds for the internment camps in which

Canada’s first woman war artist, Molly Lamb Bobak, is born. Molly Bobak was born Molly Lamb on February 25, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The daughter of a geologist and an art critic and amateur photographer, Bobak futhered her natural artistic abilities at the Vancouver School of Art between 1938 and 1941. In late 1942, she enlisted as a draughtsman in the Canadian Women Army Corps (CWAC), where her work in using art to record the CWAC’s activities soon won her a promotion to lieutenant in 1945-6. That also made her the first Canadian woman with the title of war artist. After the war, she married Bruno Bobak and settled in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she worked as a resident artist at the University of N.B. Years later, she was awarded honorary degrees from both UNB and Mount Allison University, and given Canadian grants to work on and display her paintings. In contrast to the military start to her career, Bobak won worldwide recognition for her watercolor paintings of flowers and everyday obje

Ujjal Dosanjh is Canada’s first Indo Canadian to be named premier. Ujjal Dosanjh was born in India in 1947, then moved to England before settling in Canada in 1968. In British Columbia, he earned a BA from Simon Fraser University and a law degree from the University of British Columbia before setting up his own law practice in Vancouver. He got involved with human rights work through the Civil Liberties Association, multicultural support organizations and the Farm Workers' Union. Although a moderate in the Indo Canadian community, Dosanjh learned about political extremism and brutality the hard way when he was attacked and severely beaten one day by members of his community who did not share his views. He entered British Columbia politics in 1991 as an NDP MLA, and eventually worked his way through a number of cabinet portfolios, including the honoured role of attorney general between 1995 and 2000. When his premier, Glen Clark, was involved in a scandal involving favouritism toward a neighbour, Dosanjh was

Agnes Macphail becomes first woman sworn in to the Ontario legislature. Agnes Macphail was born in Proton Township, Ontario on March 24, 1890. As a teacher in rural Ontario schools, she joined the United Farm Women of Ontario, attended meetings of the United Farmers Ontario, wrote articles for the Farmers’ Sun and discovered a bent for politics. Her activism was timely in that women had just been granted the federal vote (1918) and the ability to run for federal office (1919). This undoubtedly helped inspire Macphail to aim for the House of Commons, where in 1921 at age 31, she became the first elected female parliamentarian. Despite being ridiculed by male colleagues, Macphail held onto her seat for an impressive 19 years. A strong advocate of human rights, Macphail championed peace and disarmament, old-age pensions and farmers’ co-operatives. Her tireless efforts brought about Canada’s first meaningful prison reform, including McPhail’s involvement in the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada, which continues to

but title. When Indonesia won independence from the Dutch, Achmed Sukarno became the country’s first president in 1945. Twenty years later, when Indonesian communists tried to overthrow the president and his government, the Army’s chief of staff, General Mohamed Suharto, suppressed the coup. From then on, Suharto took ever more control of government operations until on February 22, 1967, President Sukarno relinquished all executive powers to Suharto, saving only his title. Once “elected” president in 1968, Suharto, and his version of a democratic government, stayed in power until March 1998. During Suharto’s three decades of power, anyone who was a communist (along with anyone suspected of being a communist) was either killed, tortured or detained. Suharto also suppressed freedom of the press, politics and speech. In 1975 he invaded East Timor, annihilating roughly one-third of the population there before the country regained its independence in 2000. Suharto was also intolerant of anything “Chinese,” which

American black leader Malcolm X assassinated. Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, one of eight children. After years of family tragedy and a troubled youth, Malcolm found himself in prison, where he proceeded to educate himself. His reading influenced him to begin following the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. By the time Malcolm left prison in 1952, he was a devoted Muslim and member of the NOI who’d discarded what he called his “slave” name for the name Malcolm X. He became a spokesman for the NOI, whose message of empowerment for black Americans increased the organization’s membership from 500 to 30,000. (The surge caught the eye of the FBI.) Malcolm X became disillusioned with Muhammad and the NOI when he learned that the leader he revered was having sex with six different women, behaviour that went against the organization’s teachings. He left the NOI to create his own organization and embark on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Malcolm X returned from that journey with

Canada’s first Jewish legislator, Ezekiel Hart, is denied his seat. Imagine gaining a seat in which you are never allowed to sit. Ezekiel Hart, Canada’s first Jewish legislator, encountered precisely that situation. Born on May 15, 1770 in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Hart studied in the United States before returning to Canada and launching numerous successful business ventures with his father and brothers. When he turned his hand to politics, he was swiftly elected to a seat in the legislative assembly of Lower Canada. There, he was to represent Trois-Rivières in a by-election in 1807. But at the beginning of his first session on January 29, 1808, Hart, as per Jewish custom, took his oath on the Old Testament with his head covered. His political opponents claimed this invalidated Hart, and passed a legislative assembly resolution on February 20, 1808 to deny the rookie Jewish legislator his seat. When Hart was re-elected on May 16, 1808 and took his oath according to Christian custom, the governor still denied