Former SLC Mayor Launches Human Rights Group

Mar 20, 2008 by KCPW

High Road for Human Rights to Build Massive, National Phone Tree

(KCPW News) Two months after leaving the Salt Lake City mayor’s office, Rocky Anderson is launching his humanitarian organization High Road for Human Rights:

 

“The important point of High Road for Human Rights is that we don’t really see anything meaningfully being done on major human rights issues, in terms of our nation’s federal policy, without people at the grassroots pushing for it.”

 

Anderson’s goal is to provide an organizing mechanism for people who otherwise feel powerless in the face of global issues such as genocide, sexual slavery and climate change. He held a special presentation on the new organization last night, with a repeat scheduled this evening at his downtown law offices. The former mayor plans to take the presentation on the road to civic groups, churches, schools and anywhere his message of human rights would be welcome. While he hopes people will put their dollars behind the organization, Anderson wants more than anything to build a massive phone tree like his political rival, Gayle Ruzicka of the Utah Eagle Forum:

 

“If we had had a national Gayle Ruzicka – with certainly, in my view, better politics; but I do have a lot of respect for what she’s done in an organizing fashion – if there had been a national organization like that during the Bosnian genocide, during the Rwandan genocide, I think these past five years we would have seen major changes.”

 

Approximately $150,000 in seed money was donated to High Road for Human Rights by Barbara and Norm Tanner, who also sponsor the Center for Non-Violent Human Rights Advocacy at the University of Utah.

 

Use the media player below to hear an interview with Anderson.

 

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