W.E.B. Du Bois Submits 'An Appeal to the World' to United Nations

In October 1947, W.E.B. Du Bois presents 'An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States' to the United Nations. The 155-page petition documents in detail the systematic denial of civil rights, economic opportunity, and human dignity to Black Americans. The U.S. State Department, embarrassed during the Cold War, pressures the UN not to act. Eleanor Roosevelt, on the UN Human Rights Commission, votes against hearing it. The NAACP board, pressured by the government, eventually fires Du Bois in 1948.