Why Town Hall Meetings?

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Town Hall Meetings on Human Rights

• Town Hall Meetings offer people in every state an opportunity to participate publicly in dialogue and action that brings the Universal Declaration to life, illuminating both the Declaration’s meaning to their own communities and its power as a framework for international outcry.

• Town Hall Meetings provide both the impetus and the mechanism for collaboration among many voices to demonstrate the breadth, diversity and home-grown American character of the constituency supporting the Universal Declaration.

• Town Hall Meetings provide an opportunity to gather long-time leaders in the human rights movement with others who are engaging with the movement and its founding document for the first time - an unprecedented gathering of old and new voices, a powerful and lasting collaboration.

• Town Hall Meetings provide an opportunity for people in all parts of the country to act together -- in person -- to achieve progress on important campaign goals and objectives.

• Town Hall Meetings will provide issues, proposals and participants for a White House Conference on Human Rights, which we have asked President Clinton to convene in 1999.

• Town Hall Meetings will represent the culmination of organizational work and civic energies stimulated throughout 1998, as well as a launching point for future actions prompted by the 50th anniversary.

• Town Hall Meetings can be organized everywhere: "in small places, close to home" as Eleanor Roosevelt said, emphasizing that "The destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities."

• Town Hall Meetings have been used effectively to build constituencies for issues featured in a series of global forums including Rio de Janeiro (on the environment), Cairo (population), Vienna (human rights), and Beijing (women’s rights).

• Town Hall Meetings will attract local and national media coverage, and will thus help to showcase the Universal Declaration, not just as an historic accomplishment of the postwar community of nations, but as a framework for education and action today.