We have heard it all of our lives that there are some inalienable rights that all humans have, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The reality is that this has not been true throughout history and, to some extend, remains untrue today. The question of human rights has not always been what people think of today as being protected by laws. In fact, it wasn’t until the past half-century was the Human Rights issue even fully broached.
During the interwar period, the were some people that advocate for human right but had little success. In Mark Mazower’s article, “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950,” he examines why this was the case. He states that in order to protect human rights, one would have to curtail the state’s power over its citizens or subjects (Mazower, 380). This was the main reason that stood in the way. As history shows, states often never enjoy relinquishing power over their people. Though there were some small successes such as minority protection bills, they often faded away and “died unlamented deaths” (Mazower, 390). Throughout the interwar period, the U.S. and other powers often looked over these bills and issues in order to ignore the racial discrimination in their own countries rather than fixing the issues in all.
One of the first times that the question of human rights arose in early 1955 when Edward Steichen opened his new exhibit in the Museum of Modern Arts in New York entitled “The Family of Man.” His exhibit quickly became very popular and sparked some serious backlash based of the racial depictions in some of his photographs. The exhibit seemed to have the opposite effect from which Steichen and his colleagues had meant for it to have. Fred Turner states in his article, “The Family Man and the Politics of Attention in Cold War America,” that the exhibit seemed to promoted a “pro-American” point of view while showing the “racial, sexual, and political repression” from the 1950s” (Turner, 57). Because some of the photographs depicted the atrocities from the latest wars, many people began discussing human right. Steichen eventually had to take down a photo of an African American being lynched because he felt it was receiving “undue attention” (Turner, 83). This public display is what sparked the talks on human rights, hoping for some progress to be made.
Since the “Family of Man” exhibit, some progress has been made but there is still a ways to go. Steichen’s exhibit help open the eyes of the U.S. people to the atrocities that were happening around them and sparked the movement for better human rights, both internationally and domestically.
Your post has some interesting points in it. The charter for the UN has always been vague about how much it can get involved in a state’s affairs without unduly violating their sovereignty. Reading about it and the growing focus on human rights has been interesting.
I thought you highlighting the specific point of a lynching was particularly thought provoking, “This public display is what sparked the talks on human rights, hoping for some progress to be made.” While it is a difficult topic to stomach and acknowledge, I personally believe removing the photo was a mistake. I would liken it to removing Civil War Confederate statues and monuments, they might not be the prettiest or most pleasant thing to talk about but it is an important part of our history. I believe you must acknowledge the good and the bad in terms of studying history, it is dangerous to throw away parts of history that we don’t like or think is offensive. You shouldn’t force people to see it but allow everyone to have access to it.
To me, mainly with the time frame from which this is coming from, instead of just human rights, could we also say that the idea of civil rights was beginning to take hold in this time? For the United States, the government seemed to support the rights of the individual, but for the group they were hesitant. This was also true with other allied and UN nations at the time for it was of their best interest for people to see themselves as citizens of the world and not just part of a race, clan or country. When people did start seeing themselves as more as a group, especially as you cited with the lynching of an African American, they began to see themselves as a group that was looked down upon and realized that it was not an individual who was gone to change the world or the country, but a group of like-minded individuals. Just so happened that this thought process was right before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s for America and the beginning of de-Colonization of the world, which was possibly influenced by these thoughts.
When I was reading the article, I also took note of the picture removal of the man being lynched. I feel like this displays the amount of “sugar coating” history that happens in American society. This was a real event that was still going on at the time. The civil rights movement had not occurred yet. People continue to reduce the facts and visuals of hard truths because the “undue attention” will take away from their imperfect ideal.
One question I have after reading this post is if you believed it would be prudent for the government to relinquish power in the interest of advancing human rights. In many ways, it seems that to secure what people call “human rights” the state must exert more power over its populace in order to curtail the inherent discriminations that exist in the system. Moving from that point, I would like to say that your analysis of the art exhibit was very illuminating and gave good insight into the attitudes of the post-war Americans.