humanrights.fhi.duke.edu

Newsletter | March 2025

Upcoming Events - DHRC News - Human Rights in Action - News From Our Partners

OUR UPCOMING EVENTS

March 22 @ 11:00am: Human Rights Across the Professions (DHRC's Student Advisory Board), Social Sciences Rm 136


March 23 @ 4:30pm: Human Rights Certificate Virtual Info Session, Zoom


April 7 @ 5:00pm: Méndez Award Ceremony: Haley Cohen Gilliland "A Flower Traveled in My Blood," Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Smith Warehouse Bay 4


April 13 @ 12pm: Summer Read Kickoff Lunch, Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Smith Warehouse Bay 4


*co-sponsored by Duke Human Rights Center

DHRC NEWS

March 22 | Human Rights Across the Professions

11am-1pm

DHRC@FHI's Student Advisory Board

Network and learn from human rights professionals. Refreshments will be provided!


More event info here ->

Guest panelists:

  • Michael Schreiber, Chief Operating Officer at the Kennedy Human Rights Center
  • Rebecca Everly, Director for the Committee on Human Rights at the National Academies for Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
  • Gagan Vasser, Former Programme Management Officer at the United Nations

April 7 | Méndez Award Ceremony: Haley Cohen Gilliland, A Flower Traveled in My Blood

5pm-6:30pm

Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Smith Warehouse Bay 4

Haley Cohen Gilliland, winner of the 2026 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America, will be joining us on April 7 for a reception and to give a reading from the book.


Reception starts at 5:00pm. Cohen Gilliland's reading starts at 5:30pm. Books will be available for purchase and signing. We hope to see you there!

A Flower Traveled in My Blood book cover

In A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children, Gilliland documents how the Argentine Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo set out to find their grandchildren, abducted by the military junta in the 1970s and 80s. With determination and creativity, the abuelas marched, confronted the authorities, allied with local and international human rights groups, and pioneered the use of genetic testing to find their loved ones. This is despite the intense grief of losing their adult children, "disappeared" by the security forces.



More event info here ->

Two opportunities for students - APPLY NOW!

Human Rights Summer Research Grant

Currently enrolled Duke undergraduate and graduate students are invited to apply for up to $2,000 of summer research funding from the Duke Human Rights Center@FHI! Applications due March 27.


Apply for the Human Rights Summer Research Grant ->

Oliver W. Koonz Prize for Human Rights

Win $500 for your outstanding human rights essay or project! Submit your work to be considered for the Oliver W. Koonz Human Rights Prize anytime between now and April 10. Work created for a Duke course is eligible, but not required! 

Visit our website for submission guidelines and instructions ->

Duke Human Rights Center @ FHI Summer Read. Book cover of The Problem of Personhood.

Summer Read: Kickoff Lunch

April 13 @ 12pm-1pm

Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Smith Warehouse Bay 4

Join Duke Human Rights Center@FHI for our Summer Read Kickoff Lunch! We're inviting students, faculty, staff, and community members to join us this summer in reading Lisa Siraganian's The Problem of Personhood: Giving Rights to Trees, Corporations and Robots.


The Kickoff Lunch will be a time to meet each other, hear a bit about the book, and receive your free copy! We will meet again in the early fall semester to discuss the book and its implications in our human rights work. Thank you to Professor Juliette Duara for collaborating with DHRC on this project!


If you'd like to participate in the DHRC Summer Read (whether you can attend the Kickoff Lunch or not), please sign-up:

NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS


Letter Writing Event

Duke Justice Project Advocacy Week


March 24 @ 6pm

Bio Sci 130


Join the Duke Justice Project for letter writing and food!

  • Learn about recent NC criminal justice legislation
  • Write advocacy letters to NC politicians
  • Enjoy Chipotle catering!


RSVP here for Chipotle ->



Spring Lecture with Dr. Barbara Andrea Sostaita

Duke Divinity School, Hispanic House of Studies


April 7 @ 12:30pm

0012 Westbrook Building


The Hispanic House of Studies invites you to their annual Spring Lecture with Dr. Barbara Andrea Sostaita, author of Sanctuary Everywhere: The Fugitive Sacred in the Sonoran Desert. Boxed lunches will be available for the first 40 attendees. Livestream available here.


Application due April 13!

North Carolina Civic Fellowship Program

You Can Vote


Application due April 13!


Join the North Carolina Civic Fellowship Program! As a Civic Fellow, you will work with teams of students across the state on nonpartisan projects to educate and mobilize students to make their voice heard and their vote count in the 2026 elections. This opportunity will require a commitment of up to 10 hours per week for the semester. 


REQUIREMENTS

The NC Civic Fellowship program is open to students who attend colleges, universities, and community colleges in North Carolina. You must be located in North Carolina during the fellowship dates and be willing to attend in-person events. Availability on weekends to attend events is required.


PROGRAM DATES & PAY

This program will have an option of two start dates – either June 1st or August 10th, depending on the individual's summer schedule. The program's end-date is November 20th, 2026. Fellows will be paid $18 an hour for an average of 10 hours per week, paid every other week.


Apply to Civic Fellowship Program here ->  



2026 Charles E. Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship

USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research


The Scheidt Summer Undergraduate Fellowship is open to undergrads from any academic discipline (and any institution in the world) to conduct original research drawing on the unique resources in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at USC, including the Holocaust and Genocide Studies book collection, the Library's Special Collections, and the Visual History Archive. 


Further details and the full call for applications can be found here.

The application deadline is March 31, 2026.

Questions can be directed to cagr@usc.edu



Sam Block's Spirit: from Mississippi to Minneapolis

Op-Ed from DHRC Advisory Board member Prof. Wesley Hogan


“I’m not really a movement guy,” reflected longtime New York Times columnist David Brooks early in the second Trump administration. But a social movement, he said, “is what America needs right now.”


To understand why America’s heart requires movements, it helps to remember activists who help make it beat—like Sam Block. As a young Air Force veteran in the early 1960s, Block and other freedom riders worked tirelessly to register Black voters in his home state of Mississippi. Police responded with a campaign of physical terror. In official cruisers, they followed people home from voter registration workshops, pulled them over for made-up offenses, and beat those who insisted they had done nothing wrong. In late July 1962, police arrested a fourteen-year-old boy, forced him to strip, and beat him with a bull whip as he lay naked on the Greenwood jail’s concrete floor. “When someone came near, a buzzer was sounded, and a television set was turned on to drown out the boy’s screams,” historian Howard Zinn wrote.


This stunning cruelty ignited in Block a passion for justice strong enough to overcome his instinct to flee. Keep reading ->


Hiring: Interpreters (all languages)

World Relief Durham


World Relief Durham is seeking interpreters for all languages (immediate need for Burmese, Kinyarwanda, and French). No experience needed. Pay is $20/hour (contractor). Submit interest form or call 919-943-1546.


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If you'd like to reach out directly to the Duke Human Rights Center team, email us at dhrc.fhi@duke.edu.