Mind's Eye

Witness.org, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit started in 1992 by rocker Peter Gabriel and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation as a project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, is marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's December 10, 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights with this short video, above.

What video or image first opened your eyes to human rights? Click here to see some images that people have shared so far with the United Nations.

What images first engaged you? For me, it was this one, below, Tomoko in Her Bath, by photojournalist W. Eugene Smith for a series for LIFE Magazine on the mercury poisoning of the waters off the coastal Japanese village of Minamata, by the chemical company Chisso, in the 1950s. It is known as Smith's best portrait, of a mother and her child—a victim of the pollution.


I visited Minamata in 1991, while a correspondent for Hearst Newspapers based in Tokyo. The stigma surrounding those born and raised in this former fishing village off the South China Sea persists, despite an aggressive public relations campaign by local officials to promote tourism, some 30-plus years after the poisonings.

Which images most moved you? Share them with Cause Global, and we'll post your recollections (either comments or videos/photos) in the coming weeks.

(*W. Eugene Smith photo, above, used here with permission)