UNESCO – Leading the world’s fight against racism for 70 years

The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Since its creation 70 years ago, UNESCO has tirelessly worked to defend and promote this fundamental idea. - See more at: http://en.unesco.org/70years/leading_fight_against_racism#sthash.otDkesz5.dpuf

Indeed, when the committee appointed by the United Nations, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, was beginning it work to create the declaration, is asked UNESCO to look into whether there were indeed universally recognized human rights. The results of that investigation are available free online.

UNESCO was created to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men. It seems obvious now that those defenses have to include defenses against racism, since all too often men have mentally constructed racial differences and then used them as a rationale to break the peace. Perhaps that lesson, though less widely shared in 1945, was all the more vivid in the minds of those creating UNESCO in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust!