Lower East Side Tenement Museum at the AGM 2004

The 2004 Annual General Meeting will be collaborating on special programming with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, using history to reflect on contemporary social issues and to link the struggle for economic, social, and cultural rights to our own human rights work. Activities include museum tours, educational panels, and discussion groups.

Built in 1863 before most U.S. housing laws, the museum is one of the first examples of tenement buildings and is the first homestead of urban, working class, poor and immigrant people preserved in the United States. Tours demonstrate a variety of immigrant and migrant experiences on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Activities will draw connections between historical perspectives and contemporary implications in order to motivate participants to take action on contemporary problems, and support communities of conscience.

Museum Tours: Friday, April 16
Choose between two different hour-long tours. Participants for both tours will meet at 10:30 am near the AGM Registration Desk and will leave the Marriott Hotel at 10:45 am. AGM local members will escort participants to the museum in Manhattan’s colorful Lower East Side via the famous New York City Subway.

11:30 am - 12:30 pm       "Piecing It Together"

Almost every generation of immigrants to the Lower East Side has had a connection to the garment industry. This tour will introduce two such families- a Polish family (circa 1897) living and working in their apartment/garment shop and the family of a Jewish garment factory presser who succumbed to tuberculosis in 1918. Hear other immigrants as well - from Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere - recall their lives in the garment industry from the 1930's to the present.

11:30 am - 12:30 pm       "Tenement Inspectors"

Using tenement inspector checklists from the early 1900's, visitors act as housing inspectors by going through the building and checking to see if it complies with the laws on the checklist. This allows visitors to see the changes in the housing laws and to understand why these changes came about.

Volunteers will escort participants back to the Marriott by 2:00 pm. Museum admission and round trip subway fare provided. Please note access is limited on subways. Limited to 15 people each tour.

Register Now!
Sign up for this exciting tour! To pre-register, contact Rohini Verma, AGM Assistant: e-mail: rverma@aiusa.org; tel: 212-633-4291. Indicate which tour you would prefer.

Panel: Saturday, April 17

4:15 pm - 5:45 pm       Historic Sites and Human Rights: Activating "Sites of Conscience" as centers for citizen engagement in struggles for justice

How can places of the past inspire new action for the future? In American urban communities and around the world, "sites of conscience" are opening as new centers for inspiring awareness and action on human rights issues. The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience represents a network of historic sites committed to using their histories to address contemporary issues. Hear how the Lower East Side Tenement Museum addresses issues if immigration and sweatshop labor; the "slave galleries" at St. Augustine's Church brings communities together for dialogues on racism and exclusion; the District Six Museum in South Africa catalyzes post-apartheid land reparations; Memoria Abierta in Argentina maps sites of torture and detention in Buenos Aires; and the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis works to inspire a new generation of activists. Participate in a workshop to explore ways to use places of memory in your own communities as new tools to support your own campaigns.

More on the Lower East Side Tenement Museum http://www.tenement.org/

Discussion: Sunday, April 18

11:15 am - 12:45 pm      AIUSA/Lower East Side Tenement Museum: Bringing it Home

The AIUSA Human Rights Education Program and Lower East Side Tenement Museum will co-facilitate a discussion for those who have attended the museum tours and/or AGM Panel during the weekend. We will discuss the links between the historic issues raised at the various sites of conscience and contemporary human rights challenges that we as Amnesty International activists are engaged with in our expanded mission. This discussion is open to all interested participants.