The Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World is a document drafted at the inaugural convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in New York by convention delegates in 1920, which protests the discrimination faced by Black people and demands fundamental rights and fair treatment for Black people everywhere. The landmark document is one of the earliest compilations of social, civil, and political rights.
thumb|405x405px|Marcus Garvey delivering his inaugural address to the 1920 UNIA convention at Liberty Hall.
History
UNIA founder Marcus Garvey brought thousands of delegates from across the world to Harlem, New York, with three objectives in mind: discussing the challenges facing Black people, planning for the resettlement of Africa, and framing a bill of rights. On the first day of the convention, Garvey addressed a crowd of more than 10,000, saying, “This convention of the UNIA is called for the purpose of framing a Bill of Rights for the Negro Race. We shall write a constitution within this month of August that shall guide and govern the destiny of four hundred million Negroes of the world". Garvey had prepared his own version of the Declaration and presented it on the floor. On August 15, Garvey read out the full Declaration of Rights to the convention, The Declaration was called the "Magna Carta of the Negroes of the world" and "the most sacred document any body of colored people had ever drafted" by a reporter for the Negro World, the UNIA's newspaper. In the same piece, Garvey argued that the delegates had promulgated a "clear and convincing Declaration", which embodied the spirit of the dedication of Black people to actualize the rights codified in the new Declaration. In an August 24 article for the Negro World, Garvey penned that the Declaration would go down in history as a foundational document of freedom and human rights, alongside the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence.
thumb|387x387px|The Declaration of Rights of Negro Peoples of the World, printed in the August 31, 1920 edition of the [[Negro World.]]
Structure and Content
Preamble
The beginning of the Declaration reads: "Be It Resolved, That the Negro people of the world, through their chosen representatives in convention assembled in Liberty Hall... protest against the wrongs and injustices they are suffering at the hands of their white brethren, and state what they deem their fair and just rights, as well as the treatment they propose to demand of all men in the future". Professor Laura Madokoro argues that the Declaration should be considered a crucial part of human rights history, along with seminal works like Rights of Man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.