With one of the nation’s most recognizable surnames and a long list of humanitarian efforts, Kerry Kennedy encouraged University community members to get involved in the fight for human rights yesterday.
The inaugural speaker of the Delta Gamma Lectureship in Values and Ethics at the University, Kennedy, who is the daughter of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, spoke yesterday about her work defending human rights as founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. Delta Gamma and the Center for Ethics and Public Life sponsored the lecture titled “Speak Truth to Power.”
In front of a crowd of about 200 people at the Michigan League yesterday afternoon, Kennedy said she became inspired to fight for human rights at a young age after hearing friends’ experiences with domestic abuse, AIDS and rape.
Kennedy began her work as a human rights activist in 1981 when she worked for Amnesty International by documenting U.S. immigration officials’ abuses against refuges from El Salvador. At the time, she said, she realized she was “in a world full of Goliaths (and) that there were a handful of Davids.”
Grassroots movements and the work of individuals are instrumental in promoting change in the fight against greater powers, Kennedy said.
“If you look back over the last 40 years about the major changes on human rights and civil rights, they’ve all come about because of that grasping for freedom by small groups of people,” she said.
Kennedy had the opportunity to interview fellow human rights activists, including Nobel Laureate and author Elie Wiesel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for her book called “Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World.”
Wiesel’s and Tutu’s philosophies make up two ends of a spectrum, with Wiesel fighting against extreme human rights violations and Tutu maintaining the idea that “good can triumph even under the worst of circumstances,” Kennedy said.
In an interview after the lecture, Kennedy said she feels her famous last name is an advantage in her line of work and has helped her to enact change through human rights activism.
“The people who are working on human rights are more likely to be more open with me more quickly because it’s a name that they trust, and the government is more likely to work with us because they know and admire my family,” she said.
On a recent trip to Cambodia, Kennedy and her foundation introduced a course on human rights into the country’s school system. Kennedy said she also plans to do work in Haiti, tackle health care issues in the Gulf Coast region and document human rights abuses in Guerrero, Mexico. In the near future, Kennedy will be working to tie U.S. military aid to human rights improvements.
John Chamberlin, director of the University’s Center for Ethics in Public Life and a University professor, said Kennedy became the top speaker choice for the event speaker early in the process of organizing the lecture series.
“We (wanted) someone who actually is doing some good in the world and someone who has something to say and someone who would be well known,” Chamberlin said.
University alum Megan McKeown said in an interview after the lecture that she was motivated by Kennedy’s speech and the work she has done.
“It’s kind of upsetting to think that we can’t necessarily do all that we want to, but it’s definitely inspiring,” McKeown said. “It makes me want to get up and try and fight for something.”