2008 Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award Winner: Rev. Gloria White-Hammond

Gloria White-Hammond

Rev. Gloria White-Hammond is a dedicated pediatrician, a courageous human-rights activist, and an inspired minister who has worked tirelessly to effect health and healing from Dorchester to Darfur, from the South End to South Sudan.

White-Hammond has a long history of advancing human rights. She has worked as a medical missionary in several African countries, including Botswana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa. Since 2001, White-Hammond has made seven trips to war-torn southern Sudan, where she has helped to obtain the freedom of 10,000 women and children who were enslaved during the two-decades-long civil war.

In 2002, she cofounded My Sister's Keeper (MSK), a humanitarian women's group that partners with women of Sudan in their efforts toward achieving reconciliation and reconstruction of their communities. MSK has developed two grinding-mill projects and supports the Akon School for Girls, in Gogrial County, Sudan. In February 2005, White-Hammond traveled to Darfur, western Sudan, to listen and learn from female survivors of genocide in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). She currently serves as national board chair of the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations, including UUSC.