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The Dorothy Cotton Institute (DCI) is one of CTA's newest projects. The organization began in 2009 as a CTA strategic initiative and joined us as a project partner in the spring of 2011.
The DCI was inspired by Ms. Dorothy Cotton, a civil rights leader, activist, and educator who was the National Director of Education for twelve years at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From 1960 to 1968 she led the Citizen Education Program (CEP), which trained and empowered disenfranchised citizens while developing local leadership in the South and promoting nonviolent social change. The now famous CEP is credited with helping to overthrow the Jim Crow laws in the South.
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Dorothy Cotton in front of her image at the National Civil Rights Museum
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Kirby Edmonds, a DCI senior fellow and Project Coordinator, says they are currently developing a Citizen Education Program for the twenty-first century. According to Laura Branca, another senior
fellow, this program will "take the key principles of the CEP from the 1960s-education based on peer education and support -and revise it for the twenty-first century." They hope this program will get people to look at new strategies for non-violent community organizing and engaging effectively to create social change. Branca says the first group will most likely be new and emerging leaders-and people who may not see themselves as leaders, but who can engage as active participants in the community and have an important contribution to make.
In addition to developing a revised CEP, the DCI is also teaching human rights curriculum to educators, who in turn teach human rights to their students. In 2011, the DCI taught human rights education to over 250 educators in the Ithaca City School District using the curriculum "This Is My Home," which was a joint initiative of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center. The curriculum includes materials for kindergarten through high school students on understanding, protecting and promoting their rights. "Teacher education training generally does not include human rights education," says Branca, and the DCI is trying to change that.
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Dorothy Cotton with Kirby Edmonds at the "lunch counter" exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum
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Recently, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, which really means that all over the world, human rights education is being recognized in itself as a right. The Declaration states not only what people should learn about human rights, but how (through human rights, which includes learning and teaching in a way that respects the rights of both educators and learners), and why (for human rights, which includes empowering persons to enjoy and exercise their rights and to respect and uphold the rights of others).Branca says of the adoption, "For those of us who are doing human rights education it strengthens what we do. It affirms that this isn't just a nice idea; people are entitled to know our rights, and educators are obligated to teach human rights."
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The Center for Transformative Action (CTA) helps to create communities that work for everyone. We do this by providing fiscal sponsorship to innovative social change agents in New York State, as well as financial, human resources, and grants management services. CTA is an educational non-profit organization affiliated with Cornell University.
