SUBDOMAIN 117.1 - THEMES IN U.S. & WORLD HISTORY
Competency 117.1.5: Individuals as Mechanisms of Social/Governmental Change - The graduate assesses the role of individual agency in historical events by examining the role played by particular individuals in large-scale instances of social/governmental change. Competency 117.1.6: Institutions as Mechanisms of Social/Governmental Change -The graduate evaluates social movements as a catalyst of and mechanism for social and governmental change.
B. Justify your choice of the two most significant social and/or political changes that occurred as a result of the actions of one individual from the following list of United States leaders:
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Susan B. Anthony
•
She visited troops in the South Pacific and worked as a gateway for the common man to reach the president. In one five-week trip she visited 17 islands and spoke with more than 400,000 soldiers. She visited hospitals in New Zealand and Australia and spoke with every single wounded soldier. William F. Halsey, commander of the Allied naval forces in the South Pacific wrote, “She alone, accomplished more good than any other person, or any other group of civilians, who passed through my area.” (Harris, 2007) After serving at Franklin’s side through his fight with polio and being elected four times to the office of president, Franklin passed away and Eleanor found herself on her own. While Eleanor never lost her desire to improve life for people at home, she became more and more concerned about people everywhere during World War II. She was appointed to the United Nations and eventually became chair of the committee charged with setting up the commission for human rights. The first task of this commission was to draft a document defining human rights and Eleanor herself wrote this document. As she had throughout the rest of her life, Eleanor remained adamant that this document encompass all people as equally as possible and that different concepts of human rights be addressed. Her tireless work helped to create a universally accessible document that would serve as a guide human relations for generations to come.
Eleanor Roosevelt was