BIOGRAPHY OF FREEDOM CAMPAIGN CO-FOUNDER
& EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JACK HEALEY
Jack Healey, "Mr. Human Rights"
Jack Healey grew up as a 'poor kid' in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The youngest of eleven brothers and sisters, he was raised by his mother after his father died when he was only two years old. She told him, "I didn't bring you into this world to survive, I brought you into this world to do something." Jack took those words to heart and they have guided his actions throughout his entire life.
A devout individual, Jack became a Franciscan priest and helped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organize the March on Washington in 1963. He notes Dr. King as one of his major influences. At age 30, he left the priesthood so he could "get more deeply involved with what was going on - and going wrong - in the world."
Jack's first job was raising money for Freedom From Hunger. To do so, he devised the original idea for a walk-a-thon (then called the Walks for Development) and through his efforts raised $14 million between 1969 and 1974.
In 1974 he became the director of the Center for Community Change where he directed the highly successful Dick Gregory World Hunger Run and helped to build a hospital in Mexico. Jack joined the Peace Corps in 1977, becoming the Director of Peace Corps Lesotho in Africa for four years. Through his position he took the organization into new areas of health, agriculture, and farming.
After four years with the Peace Corps, Jack answered an ad he read on the back of a brochure and soon became the Director of Amnesty International - US. While there he increased Amnesty International's membership from 30,000 to 400,000 and transformed it from a $3 million organization to a $26 million organization.
In the 1980's Jack made Amnesty International a household name with his pioneering of four successful musical tours including the Conspiracy of Hope and Human Rights Now! tours. These tours featured such artists as U2, The Police, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, and Lou Reed among others.
After 12 years, Jack left Amnesty in 1994 to approach human rights from a more "grassroots perspective." He founded the Human Rights Action Center (HRAC) in Washington DC with the goal of trying to move the world towards nonviolence by utilizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR was drafted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948, largely in response to the atrocities bestowed upon the people by Nazi Germany and endorsed by all of the member countries of the United Nations as a legal document.
"I view the United States as one of many countries in the world," says Jack, "not the center of the universe. So what I'd like to do is create a universal celebration for the Declaration that was signed by nearly every nation in the world, although many of those countries violate that agreement today."
As director of the HRAC Jack has recently rebuilt a factory in Bosnia for war widows, started a campaign to print the UDHR in the passports of all citizens, produced five days of sold-out music in Seattle and a CD called Groundwork with Mel Ciccone and Punks for Human Rights with Joe Strummer. Jack has also raised a million dollars for the fight against world hunger with FAO/UN, working with such artists as R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews, Mana, and the Wall Flowers.
Currently he is working on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient in the world. Suu Kyi's political party won over 82% of the vote in Burma's last election; however, instead of being declared the rightfully elected leader of the country, Burma's military junta placed her under house arrest where she has remained for more than 10 of the last 16 years. Jack recently executive produced the album For the Lady , a 27-artist 2-disc compilation album featuring songs donated from Paul McCartney, U2, Coldplay, Eric Clapton, Avril Lavigne, and others. All sales proceeds from For the Lady are going to the US Campaign for Burma in an effort to free Aung San Suu Kyi and end the continuing human rights violations in Burma.
Jack has been called "Mr. Human Rights" by US News & World Report. He was named Person of the Week at ABC by Peter Jennings and his music tours of 1986 and 1988 both won 'tour of the year honors' by MTV. He is a humanist in the truest sense of the word and his struggle towards making a better world for all encompasses his life's work.