The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum’s Mobile Museum of Tolerance is parked at Naperville’s 95th Street Library this week, giving Naperville residents a look at some of the most important social justice issues in recent history.
“Simon Wiesenthal was a survivor of the Holocaust; he’s actually the namesake of our organization. And one of his things that he said was ‘work today to change tomorrow,’ and so that’s exactly what we’re trying to do here on the bus,” said Elizabeth Blair, education associate at the Mobile Museum of Tolerance.
Mobile Museum Features
“We learn about the past, we learn about the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement. But we think about ways that we can stay active and stand up to injustice today,” Blair said. “So it’s a very high tech museum. We have documentary films on big screens. We have a whole class set of tablets that we use to talk about social media literacy. We have lots of different pictures and images, quotes from human rights leaders that are very impactful as well.”
Support from Local Leaders
Local representatives in our area have also shown their support for the project. “We love working with our state senators and representatives,” Blair said. “This week we’re being hosted by Representative Janet Yang Rohr (D-Naperville) and Senator Laura Ellman (D-Naperville). This is such a visible place in the community for people to come. So them actually being able to physically host this in this spot was fantastic.”
Education On The Road
And while the mobile museum’s current stop is Naperville, there’s still more spots ahead on the road. “Illinois is a very spread out state. Of course we have Chicago, we’re pretty close to St. Louis as well,” Blair said. “But there are a lot of cities that are further out and can’t get to those cities for field trips. So we really love going to those cities that are farther out, in order to be a field trip that comes to them.”
“So we’re currently going into our ninth month. We launched back in February and have been on the road since then. We’re here for three days. We’re here Monday through Wednesday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. So we’re completely open, free to the public. No tickets or anything required. So come on board and join the experience.”
Naperville News 17’s Casey Flanagan reports.
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