June 13, 2002 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Courage of Strangers: Coming of Age With the Human Rights Movement
by Jeri Laber
The course of Jeri Laber’s life changed in December 1973 when the 42-year-old mother, wife, and part-time writer read a New Republic article describing the torture of political prisoners by governments throughout the world. The Courage of Strangers is Ms. Laber’s memoir, describing the birth of the modern human-rights movement as well as her own journey as an activist in that movement. Ms. Laber later became a founder and the executive director of Helsinki Watch, now Human Rights Watch, based in New York.
Ms. Laber describes her own intellectual and spiritual growth throughout her career and explores the formative stages of Human Rights Watch, highlighting political and philosophical challenges faced by many human-rights organizations.
“Human-rights work is not as glamorous or mysterious as it may seem from afar,” writes Ms. Laber. “It is depressing work, for we deal with human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale and must come to grips with the enormous evil in people as well as the miraculous good.”
Publisher: Public Affairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, N.Y. 10107; (212) 397-6666; http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com; 406 pages; $27.50; I.S.B.N. 1-58648-014-6.
