Two wonderful organizations I am associated with joined forces for a very nice event. I live in South Korea now, but I am still connected with two organizations in Washington, DC: I am
1) on the Board of Trustees of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association
2) I'm the Asia Outreach Fellow with the Atlas Network.
It was my first attempt to connect the ideas, activities and legacy of Frederick Douglass to the human rights crisis in North Korea. It is something I have thought about and considered writing about, but I wanted to wait until I had experienced and learned more about North Korean human rights.
Cherie Yang was great again, clearly the highlight of the night. She tells her story in an even-keeled way, in a matter-of-the-fact way that gets the audience outraged at what happened to her and other North Koreans. She is both passionate and poignant, speaking in a way that makes her seem vulnerable, and yet, she overcame a lot and had to be very strong to get to where she is today.
I had another balancing act, as the person who came up with the idea for the event, connected the organizers, gave the opening speech, had to set the foundation without speaking too much, but say something insightful about Douglass that both novices and experts could appreciate, and to do the same about NK human rights.
I expect we will be having more such collaborations in the future.
We had a great turnout. When I first proposed Feb 14, Valentine's Day, Saturday evening, everyone associated with the event worried that no one would show up. But we had no problem at all, many people showed up.
Related Korea Times columns:
American slavery then, N. Korea today
