About Me

I'm a writer and social change historian who is linking human rights and history.

Dr. Debra L. Schultz, an activist oral historian, is the author of "Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement" (New York University Press, 2001). A founding board member of the Network Women's Program of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundations Network), she recently completed a decade of work at OSI. Her international interests include Roma women's rights; developing transnational women's studies; engendering transitional justice processes; and promoting women's rights in post-conflict situations. Her domestic interests include post-Cheney America; civil rights historiography; multigenerational feminist dialogue; and the promotion of an intersectional human rights framework in the U.S. (I am never bored).

Her number one passion and obsession in life is thinking about "the politics of memory"--how we engage with the past in order to transcend it and create better visions for the future.

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Speaking of the past, present, and future, the photograph on this blog shows me standing on the steps of Pearl and Ralph's house, 6633 Catina Street, in Lakeview, New Orleans on September 28, 2006, one year after Hurricane Katrina. My right hand is next to the waterline--8 feet high. The house, now gutted, was my home away from home growing up--and I am very, very angry about what happened here. However, the people of New Orleans have been and will always be its greatest resource, and I believe the city shall rise again.