Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was a lifelong advocate of civil and human rights. In the 1930s, she played a leading role in the New Deal social programmes of her husband, President Franklin D Roosevelt. She served as United States delegate to the United Nations’ General Assembly from 1945–53. As the first chairman of the UN’s Human Rights Commission she played a leading role in establishing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Is the United States’s love affair with human rights over? In the seventh of our Letters to Americans series, the Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi writes a heartfelt letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, pioneer of American humanitarianism and commitment to the United Nations.