Belmont students write to change wrongs
By Leonard Thornton
Diversity Institute Fellow
03.12.04
Each week, Sarah Smith conducts a letter writing session for Belmont University students on topics that she chooses from the website of Amnesty International, a nonprofit dedicated to freeing prisoners of conscience and abolishing the death penalty worldwide.
Typically, five to 10 people attend the sessions, but on Friday 17 students showed up.
"This is an unusually large crowd," said Smith, a sophomore, who is group coordinator and president of the Belmont chapter.
Students who attend the Friday sessions often do so in order to help fulfill 60 hours of convocation credits required by the university to graduate. But Smith's involvement is motivated by personal interest that dates back to her youth.
"This is my passion," she said. "I have been interested in civil rights, human rights and the welfare of people since high school."
Smith said she remembers watching civil rights movies about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She later decided she wanted to become more involved and joined her high school chapter of Amnesty International.
Donna Graham, a senior music business major, was among those who attended the letter-writing session on Friday for the first time. She said she was there to help fulfill the last convocation credits she needs to satisfy graduation requirements but wished she had not waited so long to do so.
"This is very rewarding," Graham said. "I will come back to finish my last 10 credit hours."
Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961 and is a Nobel Prize- winning organization with more than 1 million members worldwide.
The Belmont chapter, which consists of 42 students and faculty members, was formed in the fall of 2000.
Smith said she tries to pick letter-writing topics that Amnesty officials consider urgent. On Friday, the session focused on stopping child executions, specifically addressing Nanon Williams, a juvenile facing execution by the state of Texas.
The letters were addressed to the attorney general of Texas. But depending on the issue at hand, letters could be sent to anyone from Colin Powell to the president of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao.
Smith said she gets a lot of personal satisfaction from her involvement with Amnesty International, knowing she is doing something important and meaningful.
"I can't imagine my life standing silent while human rights abuses went on world-wide," she said. "It's just now who I am. I feel like I was born to do this; it just comes very naturally to me."