October 24, 1945. The Charter of the United Nations is signed, promising to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Back when the charter was drafted a few months earlier in San Francisco, delegates from around the world gathered to build a new era of peace and human rights. 

Among them is Mary McLeod Bethune, the only Black woman in the U.S. delegation, and she already sees the contradictions beneath the moment: colonial powers writing freedom into a document that excludes millions. Years later, journalist Marguerite Cartwright will carry that insight forward, holding the UN to the ideals it claimed to represent.

Why did these two Black women believe the UN was so important, when their own country continued to deny them equality? And how can their work reframe the way we view the struggle for Civil Rights beyond U.S. borders, for all nations?

 Special thank you to Keisha Blain,  professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University and author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights.

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