The Amistad Committee Inc. annually celebrate Human Rights Day & the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on Dec. 10th. with the Toni N. Harp Human Rights Day Essay Contest for New Haven public high school students.

2025 Submissions are now OPEN!

Photos of the 2024 essay contest ceremony courtesy of: Defining Studios

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10, 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt was the chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and the US representative to it.

    The Following Values from the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights are also valued by the citizens of New Haven:

    • Everyone is born free and equal in dignity and rights

    • Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person

    • No one shall be held in slavery or servitude

    • No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

    • Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law

    • All are equal before the law and are entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law

    • No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile

    • Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of their rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against them. 

    • Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution

    • Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. 

    • Everyone has the right to marry and have a family. 

    • Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

    • Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association

    • Everyone has the right to education

  • New Haven Public School students are invited to submit a piece for the annual Toni N. Harp Human Rights Day Contest reflecting their insights on what human and civil rights mean to them today in 2025. Students should submit entries that reflect on what human rights issues matter to them such as the use of the internet, freedom of speech, women’s rights, health care, economic inequities, or other issues that impact their community. Submissions may include essays, poetry, prose, song, rap, and media that can also be performed. Pieces must include citations of sources used (web-sites, articles, and books, etc) and reference the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For winners in 11th and 12th grade: 1st place receives $1000, 2nd place receives $500, and 3rd place receives $250. For winners in 9th and 10th grade: 1st place receives $300, 2nd place receives $200, and 3rd place receives $100. 

    GUIDELINES:

    • Submissions should be typed in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced, between 300 - 500 words and adhere to the MLA-8 formatting guidelines.
Submissions that are performed or represented as visual media, a typed script or entry must be included.

      Please include a cover page containing your full name (do not put your name on subsequent pages),  your teacher’s name, your email address, grade, name of school, and date of essay submission.


    • Responses must include citations of sources used (websites, articles, and books, etc) and reference to the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


    • Save the typed submissions as a Microsoft Word file, audio files as an MP3, and videos as an MP4 and submit to: info@amistadcommitteeinc.org by 5pm on Friday, April 25th.  

    PRIZES:

    Subject to change

  • Woven Teaching

    Human Rights are for Everyone: A Guide to Teaching for Positive Change

Past Winners

  • "...discussions about systemic racism and discrimination—which are specifically condemned in the UDHR—have influenced the debate surrounding critical race theory. The values of equality and non-discrimination must be respected to solve racial injustice and ensure that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of race or ethnicity."

    Allison Miranda Planchet
    1st Place — 12th Grade (2024)
    Hill Regional Career High School

  • "Israel operates a segregated schooling system. According to Human Rights Watch, 'Nearly one in four of Israel's 1.6 million schoolchildren are educated in a public school system wholly separate from the majority. The children in this parallel school system are Israeli citizens of Palestinian Arab origin.' This means that in a nation heavily funded by the United States, about 400,000 students are segregated from their peers on the basis of race and religion. In such an environment, the lack of inter-communal empathy is hardly surprising. Arab Christians and Muslims are separated from their white Jewish peers, and according to Human Rights Watch, those schools are, 'Often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built, badly maintained, or simply unavailable, schools for Palestinian Arab children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than are offered to other Israeli children'."

    Jonas C. Ward,
    2nd Place — 12th Grade (2024)
    New Haven Academy

  • "When humans are stripped down to flesh and bone, and viewed as nearly less than humans, it's easy to treat them as such. The use of the lowest class of society as serfs, Africans as slaves on American plantations, and the second sex as caretakers required discrediting on major levels. It required societies to compose narratives tailored to corrupt pursuits, all for the sake of economic growth and superiority. It takes a village to break through the chains bound to unjust systems within America."

    Jayla Anderson
    3rd Place — 12th Grade (2024)
    Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School

  • “How much must the working-class individual sacrifice to remain educated in a country that is “dedicated” to the development and expansion of the nation? (...) All around the world, people only wish to have the right to “life, liberty, and security of person.” To some, it’s merely words on a paper. "

    Temiladeoluea Adeniran
    1st Place — 11th Grade (2024)
    Engineering and Science University Magnet School