Create Your Future: Jack Healey: Lessons from a life in human and civil rights

Create Your Future tells the gripping story of how a kid named Jack Healey growing up as the youngest of eleven children in a poor family in Pittsburgh went on to become one of the foremost champions of human rights in the world. Along the way, he became a friend and ally to such civil rights icons as John Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Dick Gregory, and Fannie Lou Hamer. After running the American Freedom from Hunger Foundation, Jack became the director of the Peace Corps in Lesotho, Southern Africa, and a fierce opponent of apartheid. He went on to head Amnesty International USA, where he persuaded some of the world's best-known rock 'n roll stars to tour the world and raise the consciousness of millions of people about human rights. Jack inspired people like Bono, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Joan Baez, U2, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang, and dozens of others to make their voices thunder for those who have been silenced by repression and tyranny. In 1994, Jack founded-and still runs-the Human Rights Action Center. He has provided indispensable help to people in such places as the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, South Korea, Chile, Taiwan, and Myanmar, where he was instrumental in freeing Aung San Suu Kyi after years of confinement. Jack believes that creating your future is not just a possibility-it is a responsibility; one that we owe ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world.