Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance:About

About Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance

Organizers and activists in Pittsburgh are working to bring diverse groups together to support each other in raising consciousness and changing policies to make Pittsburgh a model human rights city. We invite your group to join us to envision what it means to be a "human rights city" and to build our collective power to realize that vision. Together, we will press Mayor Peduto and his administration to make good on the promises he and others on the City Council made in 2011 to make Pittsburgh a Human Rights City (Click here to see the Proclamation). Allegheny County recently passed a Human Rights County measure, and we will work to make sure this is implemented in policies throughout the region. This will require residents' involvement to monitor human rights practices and to press for changes where they are needed.
We are not seeking to build yet another human rights-oriented group in Pittsburgh. Rather, we want to help unite residents in support of the human rights work happening around our city and region and to build connections with national and global human rights movements.

• The Human Rights Cities Movement: An Introduction
• Partial History of Pittsburgh's Human Rights City Alliance

The Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance is a founding member of the **National Human Rights Cities Alliance**, which is a network coming together under the auspices of the US Human Rights Network. The national network is working to develop a statement of principles which will be discussed at the 3rd national gathering of human rights cities in 2018.

Organizing Principles: The Jemez Principles for democratic organizing provide excellent guidance for our work building new relationships from our neighborhood to national and global work. We are working to help share and integrate these into the work in our region.

What do we want? Policymakers that put people over profits!
We want a People's Centered Human Rights that guarantees human rights for all people and that engages people in the process of developing policies and programs that will achieve real human rights. This requires real changes in our political strategies. For too long, human rights have been treated as a by-product of pro-growth policies. Policymakers have prioritized the voices of businesses, assuming that when they succeed human rights will automatically improve. We see all around us that this is not the case. If we truly value human rights, we need policies that make achieving these rights top priority. (See Frequently Asked Questions for more details)

• U.S. Human Rights Network on the People-Centered Human Rights Approach

Our Work

• Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance is represented on the National Human Rights Cities Alliance Steering Committee
  • 2017 Report on National Human Rights Cities Alliance
• Annual Report 2017
  Annual report 2016
• Past events
• Working Draft of An Action Plan for building a Human Rights City (PDF Version)
  • We welcome your input on this draft. Please send suggestions/comments to [[at riseup.ne ]]
• Indigenous Peoples Day in Pittsburgh On Tuesday December 2, 2014 Pittsburgh City Council adopted a non-binding Will of Council signaling support of Council members for Indigenous Peoples Day. We will be establishing a task force to work on implementing this measure, including doing public consciousness-raising and work to draft a formal, binding Resolution. Contact pghrights [at] riseup.net to get involved.
• Human Rights City Alliance Open Letter to New Police Chief Cameron McLay
• Help create Pittsburgh's Shadow Report for the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) contact us at pghrights [at] riseup.net
• Pittsburgh edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Booklet format--PDF)

Annual Reports
2016
2015

Publications
Responding to Globalization and Urban Conflict: Human Rights City Initiatives Studies in Social Justice, by Jackie Smith (Published in March 2018)

Steering Committee

Allies and Participants