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
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Andrew Jackson
Eleanor Roosevelt
Born into a select group of families known as New York Society, Eleanor Roosevelt would become known for her compassion for all human kind, regardless of race, religion, sex or economic status. She would dedicate her life to fighting for the rights of women and children, blacks and Jews, Americans and people from other countries, and senior citizens and the common worker. Eleanor would change the way the country, and the world, viewed the First Lady through her outspoken countenance and her unfailing dedication to doing everything in her power to ensure that all peoples were treated with equality, dignity and respect. Her efforts in bringing equal treatment to women and her work in the United Nations for Human Rights may be her most enduring legacy.
Throughout her life Eleanor worked tirelessly to bring women’s issues to the attention of political leaders. She was a prominent member of the League of Women Voters and the Women's City Club, which was another organization created to educate women voters. Even before her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became president she spoke at rallies designed to encourage women to the polls on election day and worked for many years