Defenders of Justice: The Heroes of the Day

by Ben Silverman

In an era when many people have come to accept basic human rights abuses around the world as unavoidable, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo tells of activists who have sacrificed their lives because of their refusal to allow the injustices they witnessed in their countries, to continue. These human rights activists who dared to defy their governments and put their lives at risk for the sake of their cause, provide us with a brighter image of the future, that of a more just world as a result of those who were willing to struggle to improve the conditions of their society.

In Kennedy Cuomo's book, Speak Truth to Power, (photographs by Eddie Adams) the stories of over a hundred different activists are told in the words of the activists themselves, resulting in an inspiring collection of motivated people, many of whom were tortured, imprisoned, and made to witness terrible atrocities. Hoping to inspire readers with the deep convictions, and the indelible sense of purpose and destiny, which in many cases helped to change the course of history in their countries, Kennedy Cuomo hopes to raise our consciousness and our expectations of what is important.

"There is this sense of responsibility, duty," Ms. Kennedy Cuomo said. "We need to be angry enough to speak out... When a society is doing something wrong, when a government is doing something wrong, they (activists) felt compelled to try and stop it."

Kerry Kennedy Cuomo herself became interested in Human Rights activism when she was a sophomore in college. As an intern at Amnesty International documenting abuses against refugees from El Salvadore by US immigration officials, Kennedy Cuomo confessed, "I was shocked to find out what my own government was doing." At the time, there were detention centers throughout the United States where people who were illiterate and spanish speaking were coerced into signing away their rights, many were sent back to their country in the middle of the night, many were denied access to a lawyer. Having visited one detention center, she remarked to TeenSpeak, "It was unspeakable. The physical plant was terrible, there was mold on the meat, they didn't change sheets between the prisoners, it was terribly overcrowded, there was mosquito infestation, and I wanted to do something about it."

Kerry Kennedy Cuomo