We will examine Dr. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, which presents a clear analysis of human rights abuses in the US and issues a clarion call to work and advocate for positive social change.

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Upon completing our course, students will receive their own Human Rights Observer packages. We need your support in covering the costs of these packages.

A $5 donation pays for one printed Human Rights Observer toolkit
A $10 donation pays for one Human Rights Observer vest
A $25 donation pays for one book of choice provided in each student package
A $52 donation covers the costs of printing, compiling & shipping one student package
An $83 donation covers the costs of printing & shipping 50 Human Rights Observer certificates
A $356 donation covers the costs of printing at least 50 Human Rights Observer toolkits
A $500 donation covers the costs of shipping 50 student packages

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These words resonate with people all over the world as we witness the atrocities committed by Israel in its genocidal campaign against Gaza and the Palestinian people. More than 20,000 people, nearly half of them children, lie dead in the rubble of their homes and shelters. Millions more are displaced, wounded, and starving. The only way that the fascist apartheid state of Israel can get away with such heinous war crimes, despite strong opposition and condemnation by other nations and people, is due to the United States’ full-fledged material and political support of Israel and its actions. As the United States sends billions to Israel for weapons, it also continues to single-handedly block ceasefire resolutions from passing in the United Nations. The United States does not want peace. Not abroad nor at home. 

As the Palestine solidarity movement grows across the country, the U.S. government is engaging in a heavy wave of state repression to silence and intimidate anyone advocating for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, or a free Palestine. Since the start of the pro-Palestine protests last  October, police in many countries have made over two thousand arrests and continue to brutalize peaceful demonstrators with unnecessary force. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? 

We are all well aware that this type of repression isn't anything new. The U.S. has a long history of suppressing journalists, academics, and activists who support the liberation of Palestine. The difference now is that the movement is bigger than ever before and growing by the day as the entire world stands with Palestine. The U.S. and Israel are aware that they are rapidly losing control of the narrative surrounding the war. 

Along with the clear human rights violations happening daily within the movement for a free Palestine and against war, we must connect these violations with the human rights violations happening daily within the “Land of the Free” for no reason other than that we live in an unjust and oppressive society that does not actually care about the welfare of its people. As our government sends billions for war, it fails to feed and house the poor within its own borders, it denies people access to affordable healthcare and education, it criminalizes poverty, it brutalizes people for exercising their freedom of speech while protecting private property, and so much more. 

Although the road to putting an end to the oppressive capitalist system that rules over us seems long and difficult, and although the ruling class appears to be using everything in its power to keep people from resisting and pushing for change, they have not been successful. The current wave of repression is only a sign that our tactics are working. Protests, rallies, direct actions, teach-ins, marches, and cultural events in solidarity with Palestine continue. More people are joining the struggle and condemning the U.S. and Israel as the real terrorists. People will continue to agitate, educate, and organize until we have achieved the liberation of Palestine and an end to U.S. military spending in support of oppression, no matter the intimidation tactics placed upon us. As Biden passes the largest military bill in U.S. history at $866 billion, Martin Luther King’s words resonate loudly: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

The U.S. habit of painting itself as a defender of human rights as an excuse to intervene in other countries for its own imperialist interests is waning. Because most of us living in the belly of the beast fall victim to these violations as colonized and working-class people, we must develop our own methods to defend human rights from a political perspective that connects capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy as the root causes of these injustices. Only when we understand the nature of our oppression and oppressors, and only when we have an education tied to liberation, can we find justice for the Palestinian people and all oppressed and colonized people in the world, and begin the process of building a better world where everyone’s rights are protected and where everyone’s basic needs are met.

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