Thursday, September 21, 2017

Johnson on US Civil Rights Leaders and UN Human Rights

“How U.S. Civil Rights Leaders' Human Rights Agenda Shaped the United Nations,” Howard Human and Civil Rights Law Review 1 (2016-2017): 33-44, by Darin E.W. Johnson, Howard Law School, appears as part of the downloadable pdf of the entire issue.  Borrowing from its introduction:
This essay comprises remarks that I delivered as part of the Howard University School of Law C. Clyde Ferguson Lecture on March 31, 2016. The C. Clyde Ferguson lecture honors C. Clyde Ferguson, former Dean of Howard Law School, U.S. Ambassador to Uganda, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for civilian relief in the Nigerian civil war, and U.S. Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Given C. Clyde Ferguson’s distinguished history as both a U.S. civil rights lawyer and a human rights advocate within the United Nations, the lecture was a fitting forum to speak about the foundational role that U.S. civil rights leaders played in shaping the United Nations human rights system.
The issue commences with a very substantial foreword by Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald on three civil rights lawyers who taught at the Howard Law School: Charles Hamilton Houston, C. Clyde Ferguson, and Goler Teal Butcher.