as a world leader.

Several Afro-Americans were accredited as official observers at the San
Francisco Conference. Their number included Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr.
Mordecai W. Johnson of Howard University, W. E. B. DuBois and Walter
White, both of the N.A.A.C.P. Ralph Bunche was an official member of the
American staff. There were also a large number of Negro journalists, and
the conference was widely covered in the Negro press. Once the U.N. was
organized and in operation, several other Afro-Americans worked for it in
a number of ways. While some held diplomatic posts, others used their
specific scientific and scholarly skills to help various branches of the
U.N. They were particularly interested in the departments concerned with
the treatment of colonial nations and with the various scientific
organizations involved in helping underdeveloped countries.

The United Nations Charter defended universal human rights more clearly
than any previous political document in world history. The Charter
proclaimed human rights and freedom for all without respect to "race,
sex, language or religion." Minority groups were particularly interested
in the work of UNESCO which, among other things, studied the nature of
prejudice and racism and tried to develop programs to eradicate these
evils. The U.N. also formed a Human Rights Commission, and Afro-Americans
expected that whatever action the U.N. took to support human rights
throughout the world would also have an impact on their situation.

The first test came in 1946 when India charged South Africa with
practicing racial discrimination against Indian nationals and their
descendants who were living within South Africa. Minority groups
throughout the world eagerly waited to see what, if anything, the U.N.
would do. When a resolution was passed by a two-thirds majority, charging
South Africa with the violation of human rights, and requiring it to
report back on what steps had been taken to alter the situation,
religious and national minorities were overjoyed. However, the enthusiasm
of Afro-Americans was dampened by the fact that both the United States
and Britain had voted against the resolution. While posing as the leaders
of democracy and humanitarianism, they seemed more concerned with
protecting their sovereign rights as nations against similar future
charges which might impinge on their sovereignty, than they were with
protecting the human rights of oppressed peoples.

The