Human Rights

From the beginning, McKinney & Associates has passionately crafted human rights campaigns for local, national and international organizations. In 1999, Amnesty International enlisted the firm to provide strategic planning, media relations and management for their “Ban the Belt” campaign. At the heart of the issue was the stun belt, increasingly becoming a tool of choice by the criminal justice system. Because of the temptation for abuse and misuse of this weapon, Amnesty viewed the stun belt as a tool of torture. A number of placements, including a full page ad in The New York Times, were timed to help generate waves of week-long coverage. Read the Amnesty International case study here.

More recently, McKinney partnered with Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, to release an eBook about the death penalty. In The Death Penalty Failed Experiment: From Gary Graham to Troy Davis in Context, the activist argues that race, wealth and geography play a greater role in determining who faces capital punishment than the crime itself. Click here to download the free eBook.