Jack Healey

Jack Healey (born 1938) is an American human rights activist, author and the former director of Amnesty International USA.

Healey left the priesthood in 1968 and began work as Director of the Young World Development Program at Freedom from Hunger Foundation USA for five years.

At the Young World Development Program, Healey produced over 300 Walks for Development.

A total of $12 million was raised from these walks and given to national and international non-profits, including Meals for Millions, The Free Clinic, and Freedom Farm Co-op of Fannie Lu Hamer.

They also funded Catholic Relief Service, Church World Service, Heifer, and Oxfam International and other international non-profit organizations.

From 1973 to 1976, Healey worked at the Center for Community Change (CCC) in Washington, D.C. At CCC, Healey helped to build the Binder Schweitzer Hospital in Mexico and co-directed the Dick Gregory World Hunger Run across the United States.

Dick Gregory won the Dawson Award from the Black Caucus for this run.

Healey, along with George O’Hara, recruited Muhammad Ali to join Dick's Hunger Run.

1976: Dick Gregory’s World Hunger Run

To highlight world hunger, Jack worked as Advisor to Dick Gregory on his World Hunger Run from Los Angeles to New York, beginning on July 4.

Dick Gregory won the Dawson Award from the Black Causus for this run.

From 1977 until 1981, Healey directed the Peace Corps in Lesotho.

During his time as director of the Peace Corps, he was also a presence on morning, afternoon and evening shows such as Oprah, 60 Minutes and Nightline.

After finishing his tour with the Peace Corps, he worked as the director of Amnesty International USA for 12 years.

Healey has received seven honorary doctorates and spoken in colleges and high schools.

He has produced three music albums and Douye, a documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi.

Additionally, Healey worked as a consultant to both the Center of Victims of Torture in Haiti, and to comedian Dick Gregory on the topic of world hunger.

Healey helped to start the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, which hands out the Reebok Human Rights Award each year, and two other non-profits, Witness (human rights group) and Equality Now.

He is best known as the organizer of Amnesty's benefit concerts in the 1980's featuring bands like U2, the Police, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Sinead O’Connor, Bob Dylan, Santana, Tracy Chapman and others.

Healey heads the Washington, D.C. based Human Rights Action Center, (HRAC), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

His projects include printing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into all passports and bringing Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to power in Burma.

Born into an Irish-American Catholic family as the youngest of eleven children, Healey grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

His mother was a teacher and his father was a metallurgist at Superior Steel, a steel rolling plant located in Pittsburgh.

He studied at St. Fidelis Seminary for high school and college and received a master's degree from Catholic University.

He was a Franciscan friar for ten years and a Catholic priest for four years.

1986: A Conspiracy of Hope Tour

This two week tour for human rights included musicians Peter Gabriel, U2, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, Bryan Adams, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Police, Jackson Browne, Santana, the Hooters, Third World and Bob Geldof.

Traveling to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, and Giants Stadium in New Jersey, this tour furthered awareness of Amnesty International in the US, raised $3 million, and brought in 45,000 new US members within a month.

MTV and Fox Network both ran the last show internationally for a period of eleven hours, and the show won a national award and brought the show into the colleges and high schools of the United States.

Because of the success of the show, Healey was recognized by MTV as humanitarian of the year.

The tour was co-produced by Bill Graham, Mary Daly and Jack Healey.

1988: Human Rights Now! Tour

In 1988, for the 40th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Healey organized the 6-week Human Rights Now!

World tour to celebrate achievements of the human rights movement and to introduce the idea of basic human rights protection through the power of the media to millions of people worldwide.

Over a million people filled the stadiums, and crowded into fields for concerts in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

The concert was broadcast to over one billion people worldwide.

The tour covered 18 countries in six weeks, and won the Pollster Reader's Award for number of viewers, beating out Michael Jackson's worldwide tour.

Healey gained attention in 1990 when he worked with other human rights activists to block the entrance to a UN Human Rights conference set to take place in Vienna, because the UN refused to seat the Dalai Lama.

In 1992, Healey spoke out against the U.S. government when Haitian refugees fleeing harm from a dictatorial government were turned away from the United States border.

Healey campaigned to free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.