Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance

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Pittsburgh Human Rights City AllianceDignity & Justice for All of us"Human rights don't trickle down...they RISE UP!"

Please join our volunteer network of individuals and organizations around Pittsburgh working to promote human rights learning and to engage in activities that promote a human rights culture and advance programs and policies that will help us realize the vision of a true human rights city.

• Join the Human Rights City Alliance email list for updates on events & action opportunities
• New! Annual Report 2017 --See what we accomplished last year!

Forged for All? the Amazon HQ2 Debate & the Future of Pittsburgh

Learn more about how Amazon's bid to move to Pittsburgh would affect human rights here. Resources, data, and recordings of community forums. View community forums' on the question of how an Amazon HQ2 would impact us: "Pittsburgh’s Economic Revitalization: Technology, Corporate Power, and Democratic Accountability" 'Human Rights, the Right to the City, and Amazon HQ2: Forged for all?

Housing is a Human Right: Slideshow on international treaties and opportunities to promote the human right to housing

TAKE ACTION:

• Stop Corporate Givaways--Sign the petition to city for transparency and accountability in deal offered to Amazon for its 2nd headquarters.
• Stop Plan to Increase Policing on Public Transit
• Communication Justice Initiative
• Community Power Movement Among other work, the Community Power Movement is promoting a People's Platform and a petition campaign calling for greater transparency and community benefits in the City's bid to host the Amazon HQ2.

SELECTED CALENDAR OF EVENTS

• Thursday April 26, 12:30 Amazon HQ2 action at the P4 conference on the river-side of the Convention Center –The goal is to emphasize the massive, catastrophic harm that our communities will experience if Amazon makes the decision to come here, setting aside even the massive multibillion dollar tax incentive package that they would receive. The P4 Conference is showcasing the City's P4 performance principles for the development of the city as expressed People, Planet, Place and Performance. See: www.p4pittsburgh.org. Remember that A few hundred tech jobs in East Liberty created a crisis of housing speculation, gentrification and displacement. Imagine that 50 or 100 times over, and our city will have a housing crisis and the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in a matter of a few years.
• Tuesday May 1 6:00 PM May Day March 2018: Celebrate Immigrants and Workers 2923 Penn Ave. Salem’s Market and Grill (Strip District). Organized by: APALA, LCLAA, Restaurant Opportunities Center, Friends of Farmworkers, Thomas Merton Center, PICC
• Monday May 7 6:00PM Human Rights City General Meeting East Liberty Public Library130 S Whitfield St, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. Get updates on key human rights struggles around housing, transit, immigrant rights, and corporate/Amazon development. Discuss ideas for future actions and education and movement-building work. All are welcome!

Regularly scheduled meetings

• • Every first Wednesday of month: Alliance for Police Accountability 6:30-8:00PM Kingsley Association, 6435 Frankstown Ave. Pgh 15206 (Childcare and food provided)
  • Cross Community (City-Wide) Tenant/Housing Rights Meeting 1 Smithfield St. Downtown PGH (HHS Building). Regular Meetings TBA (Learn more about Pittsburgh Tenants Union)
  • Every 3rd Thursday 7:00-8:30PM Pittsburgh for CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) meeting, Friends Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Ave. Everyone is welcome.

Alerts & Updates

• Campaign to Stop Plan to Increase Policing on Public Transit-- This campaign led by the Alliance for Police Accountability, Casa San Jose, Pittsburghers for Public Transit, and the Thomas Merton Center warns that the Port Authority's planned fare enforcement policy will unfairly impact communities of color, increase the problematic trend of criminalizing young people, and threaten immigrant residents.The campaign is calling for civilian fare enforcers rather than armed Port Authority Police and a citation process rather than a criminal process to deal with fare evasion (See FAQs for more information). Community organizations and individuals are asked to write letters to the Port Authority in support of this campaign (see sample letter).
• PIttsburgh Public Schools Passes Sanctuary Resolution
• Pittsburgh becomes 6th US City for CEDAW A broad coalition of human rights advocates helped advance a new ordinance enacting the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in our City, December 6, 2016. Stay involved in the work to carry out this commitment to better address needs of women and girls, families and communities in our city! www.pgh4cedaw.org

University-Based Projects

• Pittsburgh area university faculty, staff, and graduate students are invited to join the University Human Rights Network. We invite volunteers from different campuses to help support work on your campus and coordinate with other campuses.
• Pitt Human Rights Initiative
• Campus worker organizing: Pitt faculty, graduate student workers, and other workers are organizing for their rights and to support and protect the right to education. Keep informed about the campaign on their website and Facebook page

How to get involved

• Join the Human Rights City Alliance email list for updates on events & action opportunities

Please get in touch if you're interested in some of these ongoing projects or in efforts to follow-up some of these past initiatives. We are an all-volunteer group and are working to create spaces for residents to work together to envision and build a different kind of city and region. pghrights [at] riseup [dot] net.

• Housing Summit-Resources & Links
• Uniting Against Hate: Immigrant Rights, Racial Justice and the U.S. Prison System
• Annual report 2016--See what we accomplished last year!
• International Decade of People of African Descent 2015-2025--Recognition, Justice and Development
• Discussion Guideto Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian prepared for use around Indigenous Peoples Day 2017, but this resource can be used anytime to facilitate discussion and dialogue around themes of institutionalized racism, internalized oppression, and the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous communities and other communities of color in the United States.

• VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: Teach-In: Uniting Against Hate: '''How the prison industrial complex impacts our communities & what we can do to change it: A working group is organizing an event to raise consciousness on this critical human rights issue.

NEW Research on Pittsburgh and Human Rights Organizing:
Responding to Globalization and Urban Conflict: Human Rights City Initiatives Studies in Social Justice

Dangerous Times: Defending Human Rights
“Values are fragile. Because the values of human rights depend foremost on the ability to empathize with others—to recognize the importance of treating others the way we would want to be treated—they are especially vulnerable to the demagogue’s exclusionary appeal. A society’s culture of respect for human rights needs regular tending, lest the fears of the moment sweep away the wisdom that built democratic rule.” Human Rights Watch "World Report 2017: Demagogues Threaten Human Rights-Trump, European Populists Foster Bigotry, Discrimination."

• Truth-Telling for Reconciliation: Remembering Victims of Slavery & the Slave Trade-March 25th is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade--Ideas: convene a group to discuss an article or book such as The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehisi Coates or Michael Dyson’s Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon for White America. UN initiatives to fight racism and xenophobia: Together (respect, safety and dignity for refugees and migrants) “Let's Fight Racism", and "Stand Up for Someone's Rights Today," in addition to the International Decade for People of African Descent.
• Human Rights in Danger (Youth and public education resource) Human Rights Watch 2017 Report The Dangerous Rise of PopulismGlobal Attacks on Human Rights Values
• Local strategy working paper: Moving from Shallow to Deep Democracy
  Teaching Tolerance: Talking with kids and adults about human rights "Speak up for civility"--Human Rights Educators USA
• Building a society that works for all: This election showed the urgency of people's need for major changes in the basic structure of our economy and government policies. Neither presidential candidate offered that. There is a need to build grassroots movements for economic and social transformation rather than allowing elites to determine what kind of society we live in. "Politicians from both parties lionize the entrepreneur, casting poverty ...as an individual shortcoming, a narrative that erases ...the structurally racist policies that have continued to maintain [white privilege]."
• See examples of legislation passed in Human Rights Cities of Washington DC and Eugene Oregon's Inclusive Community Resolution.
• Strategies for Improving Local Implementation of Human Rights--Lessons from around the World

Defend Pittsburghers' Right to Stay in their City! Housing Justice
**Affordable Housing Initiative:** **Pittsburgh Housing Summit** (Resources and links to recordings of plenary sessions) "Don't evict Pittsburgh!" Housing is a human right! The essence of our city is people and communities--not buildings, businesses, and tourist attractions.Homes for All Pittsburgh

*The Human Rights City Alliance works to promote and support activities of all human rights advocates around the region. Please contact us about relevant events/activities to share: pghrigts [at] riseup.net .

About the Human Rights City Alliance

• See the summary of our Human Rights Cities Conference, hosted at the University of Pittsburgh
• 2016 Annual Report: See what we've done in the past year as we look forward to strengthening Pittsburgh activism for human rights in the year ahead!
• 2015 Annual Report
• International Human Rights Day 2017 Press Conference at the City County Building

How to Get Involved

• Sign up for our email list to learn about upcoming events
• Community Outreach: Please invite groups you work with to be part of the Human Rights City Alliance's work! Help us invite groups around our city to link their work with the vision of building a human rights city. This letter is addressed to community leaders and invites them to reflect on actions they can take "because we're a human rights city." This letter invites congregations/church leaders to lift up human rights concerns in their churches-particularly around December 10/Human Rights Day.
• Are you a faculty or staff member or graduate student at an area university? Join our Pittsburgh Area University Human Rights Network
• Share the word and help us carry out the Human Rights City Action Plan

Resources

• ==People-Centered Human Rights: Analyses from Around the Nation and World==
• Pittsburgh edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Booklet format--PDF)
• Working Draft of An Action Plan for building a Human Rights City (PDF Version)
• Human Rights Recommendations to the United States: A Desk Reference for State and Local Human Rights Agencies
• Resources for State and Local Human Rights Implementation
• Sanctuary Cities: Boston Principles on the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens
• Pitt Students work with Homewood residents on new resource website: I Am Homewood--this project reflects what can happen when we create networks among the various residents in our city. The Human Rights City Alliance helped bring creative and energetic folks together to enhance local knowledge and advance human rights advocacy work.
• Local Initiatives to Counter Violence-Promoting Political Extremism-- This document from the Swedish Association of Local and Regional Authorities was produced following violence at a 1995 white-supremacy concert organized by a growing right-wing movement. Examples of local initiatives can guide work in other communities to counter the exclusionary and hateful messages of such groups.
• Housing is a Human Right: Slideshow on international treaties and opportunities to promote the human right to housing

Past events

World Food Day 2015: Watch video recording of October 2015 panel on the Right to Food
International Workers Day March for Immigrant Rights 2016 Statement of Unity and Solidarity


“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Website: pghrights.org Facebook: pghrights

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e-mail: pghrights [at] riseup.net

Universal Declaration of Human Rights booklet with Pittsburgh's Human Rights City Proclamation

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