Longtime Memphis activist Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg was among those honored with the Human Rights Advocate Award at a celebration of International Human Rights Day on Thursday, December 9, at the downtown Nashville Public Library. This award is given annually to individuals who, in the words of the press release announcing the award, “have dedicated their lives to ending discrimination and promoting human rights.”
In the 1970s Wurzburg, who represents West Tennessee on the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, drafted Tennessee’s first anti-discrimination law in employment and public accommodations in the 1970s. In 1981 she wrote the Fair Housing amendments to the act creating the Tennessee Commission for Human Development Act (now the Tennessee Commission for Human Rights).
She also founded the Memphis Panel of American Women, a project to address religious and racial prejudice, and was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the International Women’s Year Commission.
Human Rights Day began in 1950 when the General Assembly of the United Nations declared December 10th as official day of recognition of “human rights defenders who act to end discrimination.” Since 2003, the Tennessee Human Rights Commission and various faith-based and non-profit organizations have held an annual celebration in recognition of the day
