The world celebrated International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, and never has it seemed more urgent and close to home. Among the big issues of our recent election those of equality among races, ethnicities, genders, gay and transgender persons, immigrants, and workers all are questions of Human Rights.

Women all over the country, from various peace and social justice groups and individuals as well, are planning to march in Washington, D. C. on January 21st, the day after the Inauguration of our new president. This march will not be a protest filled with anger. Rather, we want to remind the new administration that Human Rights are a deep historical declaration of the United States and must not be forgotten in the aftermath of a divisive and sometimes vicious campaign. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 and endorsed by 48 nations, including the United States.

We may want to think of violation of Human Rights as a problem in other countries where we hear of political prisoners and genocides. In fact, we need to think of Human Rights in every city and town in the United States too, even right here in Brunswick. Jane Addams, first president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and later recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, believed “there could be no peace without social and economic justice.” Today, we would add “environmental justice” to her words as we face the disastrous violence suffered by peaceful indigenous protesters over the threatening incursion of the Dakota Access Pipe Line into their sacred lands and water sources.

Those who work for peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) members from all over the world among the many, are not solely engaged in distant marches and local vigils and electronic petitions to world leaders even though WILPF emerged from the Hague Conference in 1915, where more than 1500 women from Europe and North America met in the middle of World War I to attempt to mediate war and promote peace, then carried their proposals to numerous heads of state. We work locally for that social, economic, and environmental justice that Jane Addams, a strong voice at the Hague Conference, insisted must exist before peace can be achieved. We work together, here in Brunswick, with those who serve the hungry, the homeless, the neglected, the prisoners, all whose Human Rights are already or may become trampled upon.

The recent election has released enormous antipathy, hatred, and attacks against these marginalized groups and more. A renewed surge of White Supremacy has fired this national mood to the point where individuals identify themselves with pride as “a white supremacist.” To believe in that status is to annihilate the Human Rights of everybody else — a list too long to enumerate. For those labeled “other” the world becomes dangerous, uncertain, their lives fragile, vulnerable.

What do we Americans want to be as a people? How do we inhabitants of the planet Earth want to live? Thinking of ourselves only as individuals, we disintegrate, scatter, self-destruct. If we consider our thoughts and our actions with the goal of the Common Good, we come together. Selma Sternlieb of Brunswick recently reminded us of these inspiring words from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963:

“I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence.”

The Maine Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, located in Brunswick, welcomes new members of all ages. Some of you may recognize us from the carnations we hand out in downtown Brunswick to honor International Women’s Day on March 8th. We do like to spread joy. On the other hand, we also endorse the Women’s March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017. The goal of the march is to insist on Human Rights for all people. This march is organized by women but not limited to women. All can participate. A contact in the Brunswick area for more information is: facebook.com/groups/1380210055324740. On behalf of all the members of the Maine Branch of WILPF: Joyce Chaplin; Christine DeTroy; Mary Donnelly; Martha Spiess; Barbara West.