Today marks the 15th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Idaho Human Rights Day

“I often see long lines of good, innocent people, accompanied by crying children, walking on and on, ordered about by a handful of men who bully and beat them until they nearly drop. No one is spared. The sick, the elderly, children, babies, and pregnant women – all are marched to their death. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth.” Anne Frank, November 19, 1942.

Hate silenced Anne, but her voice did not die.

Anne Frank was 15 when she and her sister Margot died of typhus in a Nazi concentration camp; their mother Edith had died of starvation just months prior. Anne’s diary is only one glimpse into the Holocaust; it is not the voice for all who were murdered. But she provides the reader with an entry point into a deeper conversation on anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination — an especially important lens in a state that does not require Holocaust or genocide education in the schools.

After World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted. For the first time in world history, a document outlined the fundamental human rights to be universally protected and promoted. As articulated in Article One, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

Created in 2006 by Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Jan. 18 is the 15th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Idaho Human Rights Day. It is a day to focus on human rights while embracing diversity — an ideal that should be embraced on more than just one day.

As events in the past weeks have shown, the seeds of division have not only been planted, they have also been nurtured. Anne Frank must have felt what many are feeling today, “It’s difficult in times like these; ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical.” (July 15, 1944)

But we do hold onto the ideal — that “This Universal Declaration of Human Rights (is) a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations… (and) keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms.”

It is why the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights was founded 25 years ago, why Boise is home to the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, and why the Downtown Boise Association hung banners throughout the capital city bearing Anne’s portrait with the messages of “We Are Everywhere,” “We Choose Love,” and “Love is Everywhere.”

Equality, inclusion, justice and respect for human dignity and diversity are fundamental rights that cannot be privileges for some and arbitrarily granted or denied to others. “All human beings are born free and equal.”

When passing under the downtown banners, recall another passage from Anne’s diary, “when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more… I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps that day will come when I’ll be able to realize them.” (July 15, 1944)

Perhaps this is that day.