The stories garnered from archives serve many purposes: some unite victims of human rights abuses, some provide evidence to facilitate prosecution, and some celebrate long careers committed to advancing human rights around the globe. These stories are too important to go untold. The Rapoport Center is dedicated to preserving historical memory through its archival work so these narratives can enter the public dialogue and inform advocacy efforts into the future. To this end, the Center sponsors the Archives Working Group, partners with UT Libraries’ Human Rights Documentation Initiative, and collaborates with various UT departments to preserve media and make them available to the public.
The digital archive is the culmination of a joint, two-year project with the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History documenting Michael E. Tigar’s career, and features a diverse array of items— articles, correspondence, photographs, creative works, and video recordings of oral history interviews conducted with Tigar by the Rapoport Center in 2016— which offer a glimpse of his multifaceted life as an activist, lawyer, and academic. The archive emerged from the digital collection of Tigar's papers he donated in 2016.
Based on the lived experiences of migrants and refugees in Serbia, Laura Charney argues that anti-trafficking and anti-smuggling humanitarian projects and securitization deals are serious sources of violence at the EU-Balkan borderlands.
This project is the result of a five-year long initiative to document and celebrate the life and work of Sissy Farenthold, a leader in Texas politics, the women’s peace movement, and international human rights.
Documents in the Historical Archive of the National Police of Guatemala. Photo courtesy of the Historical Archive of the National Police of Guatemala.
A product of broad international collaboration, this digital archive of the Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive (AHPN) aims to facilitate scholarly and legal research into a vast cache of historical documentation, and the search for truth and respect for human rights in the region.
George Lister, once called "Mr. Human Rights" by historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. served as a diplomat at the U.S. Department of State for more than 60 years (1941 to 2003). This site features selections from his archives and from videotaped interviews with friends and colleagues conducted in 2006.
The UT Libraries' HRDI is committed to the long-term preservation of fragile and vulnerable records of human rights struggles worldwide, the promotion and secure usage of human rights archival materials, and the advancement of human rights research and advocacy around the world.
Image credit: Mark Anton / Scott J. Atlas Collection of Legal Materials on the Ricardo Aldape Guerra Case
This collection contains lawyer Scott J. Atlas' digitized case files and audiovisual materials related to his work with Ricardo Aldape Guerra, a Mexican national wrongfully held on Texas Death Row for fifteen years before being exonerated in 1997.
The relationship between archives and social justice is often understood in terms of the role archives can play in human rights prosecutions. This working group aims to broaden this understanding by examining the transformative potential of what archives can do and be.
