Centre for Civil and Human Rights

As our conference gets going, we spent the morning at the Civil and Human Rights Museum in Atlanta. Fascinating place. These sculptures stand outside, one featuring the quote you can read more or less read from Margaret Mead (Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world), and the other a quote from Nelson Mandela: 'For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others'. It's a great museum, with a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr exhibition on the bottom floor, a focus on the US civil rights movement on the middle floor and a focus on global human rights on the top floor. There was much discussion over whether countries were correctly coloured on the Freedom House world map on the top floor. The staff were fascinated to meet people from so many different countries, and to hear their perspectives on their own and neighbouring countries. One of the group asked about whether the US really should be coloured yellow (yellow = free, orange = partially free, red = significant problems with core basic freedoms) given recent and not diminishing problems in race relations, particularly the ongoing examples of police violence against the black population. The staff member, a student studying politics, said she had been wondering if someone would ask her that over the last few months, as she wasn't sure it should still be yellow either. We will be discussing our thoughts over dinner tonight. We are being very, very well fed indeed!