Lillian & Larry Goodman Upstander Gallery

Life-size story portals, short films, and other hands-on interactives delve into five specific areas of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: economic opportunity, equal rights, safe communities, education, health, and environment. This gallery is an interactive journey that explores the lives of 40 Upstanders — local and global, contemporary and historical — who have championed these areas of human rights. Featured Upstanders include artists, historic leaders, athletes, advocates, and teenagers who remind us that we have the power to make a positive impact at any age.

Upstanders Working Towards...

Economic Opportunity

Hunger and extreme poverty curb human potential in every possible way ... until we solve these problems for all of our members, we fail ... because every person on this planet matters.

Andrew Youn

Co-founder of One Acre Fund, supporting small-holder farmers in the developing world.

If I've learned anything in my career, it's that nothing worthwhile in life comes easy.

Carli Lloyd

American professional soccer player and advocate for equal pay for women.

Cesar Chavez

Labor activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association

Don't underestimate the ripple effect of what you do. These kinds of actions ... have toppled empires.

Leila Janah

Social Entrepreneur and Founder of Samasource, training workers in the developing world.

If everything you do, you do for yourself, then when you die it all disappears. If everything you do, you do for others, it all lives on.

Premal Shah

Social entrepreneur, head of Kiva.org, leader in microlending to help lift people out of poverty.

Education

"We have every resource necessary to provide access to education for every child on the planet. We just need to commit to enabling it.

Adam Braun

Founder of Pencils for Promise, an organization that builds schools and increases literacy in the developing world.

[My purpose was to] unlock and preserve for all the creative spirit... to stimulate fantasy and imagination and strengthn children's ability to judge, appreciate, observe, [and] endure...

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

Organized secret art education classes for children in Terezin and collected over 4500 drawings from students.

Julius Rosenwald

Leader of Sears & Roebuck, philanthropist who built schools in the southern U.S. for African-American children.

I said to myself, 'Malala, you must be brave. You must not be afraid of anyone. You are only trying to get an education. You are not committing a crime.

Malala

Nobel Peace Prize-winning teenage activist for girls’ education in Pakistan and around the world.

If books are not diverse, then kids will not learn about the experiences of other members in their community.

Marley Dias

Became an activist at the age of 11 and created #1000blackgirlbooks – a list of children’s books with African-American protagonists.

Roberto Rivera

Chicagoan and founder of the Good Life Organization and Fulfill the Dream curriculum.

Equal Rights

I wanted to use sports for social change.

Billie Jean King

Former World No. 1 ranked professional tennis player, and an advocate for gender equality.

Bryan Stevenson

Civil rights lawyer, founder of Equal Justice Initiative

It's about ability... hopefully I can inspire other kids with this book to understand all the things that they can do and to help them understand the promises that have been given to them.

Dr. Victor Pineda

President of World Enabled and a leading global expert on disability rights.

Edith Windsor

LGBT activist and plaintiff in the case US v. Windsor that overturned a section of the Defense of Marriage Act.

You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation - a message of hope, a message of victory.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, founded Camp Shriver in 1962, which evolved into the Special Olympics in 1968, providing sports training and competition for people with intellectual disabilities.

Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Gloria Steinem

As a lifelong activist, organizer, and champion of feminism, Gloria Steinem supports issues related to the achievement of equality, regardless of gender.

It takes no compromise to give people their rights...

Harvey Milk

The first openly gay politician elected to public office in California, Harvey Milk supported a diverse range of human rights and community issues: gay, environmental and labor rights, and neighborhood relationship-building.

If you see something that's not right, not fair, not just, do something about it... have the backbone to get in the way.

John Lewis

Joined and led the U.S. civil rights movement. He was one of the leaders of the March on Washington and risked his life marching for equal rights in Selma, Alabama.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

Leader of the anti-apartheid movement and first democratically elected President of South Africa.

What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth, unless it is challenged and rebuked.

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise

A prominent American Reform rabbi and leader and president of both the American and World Jewish Congresses. He was a vocal opponent of Nazism and advocated for greater admission of Jewish refugees to the U.S. and Palestine before WWII.

I used to be called the world's fastest human... I have never run from a fight.

Ralph Metcalfe

Won a silver and a gold medal in track in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which demonstrated to his Nazi hosts that race does not define talent and greatness.

When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength, and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you.

Ruby Bridges

In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American to integrate a white public school in New Orleans. Later in life, Bridges became a civil rights advocate.

Susan B. Anthony

Suffragette, abolitionist, and women’s rights advocate.

Health and Environment

I can't just give water and leave. I have to ask them if they're doing okay. Some people don't have anybody to lean on....they say, 'we're depending on you.' I like my job and I like what I'm doing because I'm helping my people.

Darlene Arviso

Navajo woman who delivers water to families on her reservation with no local access to water.

Illness has been universal for the entire length of human history - but universal access to care has not been... we have the chance to end that inequality.

Dr. Raj Panjabi

Physician, Founder of Last Mile Health, an organization providing primary healthcare to rural Liberians.

Dr. Zaher Sahloul and Mrs. Suzanne Akras Sahloul

Respectively, Senior Advisor and former President of SAMS, Syrian American Medical Society and Founder and Executive Director of Syrian Community Network.

You could be changing the world. So if a 15-year-old who didn't even know what a pancreas was could find a new way to detect pancreatic cancer, just imagine what you could do.

Jack Andraka

15-year-old high school sophomore Jack Andraka invented an award-winning and inexpensive early detection test for pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancers.

We firmly believe the environmental issues cannot be addressed without extensive public participation, but people need to be informed before they can get involved.

Ma Jun

Chinese environmental activist, founder of the Institute for Environment and Public Affairs.

It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.

Wangari Maathi

Kenyan environmentalist and women’s rights activist. First African woman to win Nobel Peace Prize.

We need you to take action. We are all indigenous to this earth.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

As youth director of Earth Guardians, a group of activists, artists, and musicians who are committed to protecting the earth, Martinez is one of 21 plaintiffs suing the U.S. federal government for the right to a cleaner planet.

Safe Communities

Craig & Marc Kielburger

Founders of Free the Children and We Day, global development and children’s rights activists.

If we turn our heads and look away and hope that it [genocide] will all disappear then they will - all of them, an entire generation of people, and we will have only history left to judge us.

George Clooney

Co-founded Satellite Sentinel, which tracks and documents genocidal activity in Sudan and South Sudan by satellite.

We know that violence never has the last word - that somehow survival and life always have the upper hand.

Henry Cervantes

Peace Builder at the Peace Exchange, a Chicago organization that teaches young community leaders to advocate for nonviolence.

My faith tells me that the second original sin has been committed by humanity. This sin will haunt humanity to the end of time. And I want it to be so.

Jan Karski

A Roman Catholic and Polish resistance member during WWII who reported on the Nazi atrocities he witnessed to political leaders around the world, none of whom acted upon his intelligence.

The good we seek for ourselves is uncertain until it is secure for all of us.

Jane Addams

Social reformer, advocate for women’s, children’s, and immigrant rights.

[Torture] doesn't go away and, at some point, you don't want it to go away because you want it to be a source of commitment to working on human rights...

Juan Mendez

After being physically and mentally tortured for 18 months in his native Argentina for representing political activists, Juan Mendez turned his legal skills to finding justice for torture victims.

Theaster Gates

Artist, Chicagoan, founder of Rebuild Foundation, investing in arts, cultural programming, and developing entrepreneurial skills of local residents.

We were able to endure the life in the ghetto because we knew that we were a collective, a movement... this was the source of our strength to live.

Zivia Lubetkin

Leader of the Jewish Underground in the Warsaw Ghetto, and only woman in high command of the ZOB.