The Mobile Museums of Tolerance, a free, traveling exhibit that uses history to explore themes of empathy, compassion and respect — and the power of ordinary people — is back at the Linda Sokol Francis Brookfield Library.
“We’ll talk about civil rights or the Holocaust but really use it as a message to get ordinary people to make a difference in the world today,” said Elizabeth Blair, an education associate who is operating the exhibit in Brookfield. “I think talking about these topics is definitely important now more than ever, in terms of rising tides of hate in our world. Especially, seeing these messages about resistance, about the civil rights movement, it’s a way for people to get inspired to make a difference today, too.”
The exhibit, which travels in a purple bus to classrooms and libraries across the country, is run by the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. It will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday, Nov. 24, to Wednesday, Nov. 26, in the library’s parking lot in what Blair called “open-house style.”
“When people come, I’ll be here if they have questions, and they can watch our different videos on the Holocaust or civil rights,” she said.
This is the library’s fourth year hosting the exhibit; last year, it offered one video about identifying and standing up against hatred and bigotry online, and the civil rights and Holocaust lessons have been available individually in 2022 and 2023.
Blair said the exhibit’s lessons are relevant today as history may appear to repeat itself.
“When we look at the hate crime statistics — for example, antisemitism, Islamophobia — you can’t ignore that that stuff is rising. I think the way that we see these patterns happening is very similar to what happened in the past. We talk a lot about, with our Holocaust workshop, propaganda,” Blair said. “It starts with appealing to what people want and making promises to people, and then, eventually, it gets to the point where you’re actually pushing that hate against specific groups of people. We’re seeing a lot of that same stuff happening, not as much with posters and radio broadcasts and what was happening back in the ’40s, but with social media.”
Cortney McInerney, the library’s community engagement coordinator, said the library has hosted the exhibit year after year due to the community’s interest.
“We’ve gotten great feedback from our community. The library members who have visited the Mobile Museums of Tolerance have walked away feeling empowered and inspired by the experience. They come back every year to see the new modules,” she said. “We, as informational professionals, believe it is important to have freedom of information, to offer experiences where people can be educated in a way that teaches them empathy, being able to connect and communicate with people who might be unlike themselves.”
McInerney agreed the lessons from the exhibit are applicable in the current political moment, as residents in Brookfield, Riverside and other communities nearby are grappling with extrajudicial detentions of Latino people by federal immigration agents.
“Those lessons are universal. I don’t think anybody’s going to walk away from it feeling like it’s disconnected from their personal experience or from things that are happening today,” she said. “The tragedies in history were only possible because ordinary people stepped aside and let it happen, or even actively participated in it. The moments in history where you see things changing for the better are also because ordinary people got involved and became activists and stood up for other people, people different from themselves. It really demonstrates the power of ordinary people to make a better society, a more democratic society, and reminds us that we all have this personal responsibility to be better citizens in America.”
