On its way through the state of Illinois, the Mobile Museum of Tolerance (MMOT) is making a stop in Darien at the Indian Prairie Public Library.
Paul LaTour came away from the Mobile Museum of Tolerance (MMOT) with a keen appreciation of the effort.
“It’s just really impressive,” the library employee said. “I’m impressed with the videos, the quality, and the things that need to be said.”
The roving exhibit is an offshoot of the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum that seeks to bring awareness to the problem of hate and bigotry throughout the world.
“It’s an exhibit that sort (that) resembles a mobile classroom,” Elizabeth Blair, education associate with the Wiesenthal Center, said before opening the exhibit. “The response to the exhibit has been very positive, especially among students.”
“The purpose of the MMOT is to inspire people of all ages and backgrounds,” reads the museum’s website, “empowering them to raise their voices to combat anti-Semitism, bullying, racism, hate, and intolerance, and to promote human dignity.”
The literature available to visitors to MMOT also makes it clear that combating hate and intolerance has become critical in recent years, stressing that “over the past several years, there has been a historic rise in acts of hate, anti-Semitism, and identity-based hate incidents in the United States.”
Blair said, “we can learn about the past and think about how we can make the world better today.”
This week’s exhibits included a variety of different videos, no different than what the MMOT regularly features. Included were a Civil Rights Workshop, The Power of Ordinary People, Digital Media Literacy, and an exhibit on the Anne Frank Story.
The MMOT also regularly brings in visitors to educate the public about the damage done by intolerance.
Past exhibits have included Holocaust survivors Kurt Gutfruend, and Marguerite (Lederman) Mishkin, Assyrian genocide survivor Juliana Taimoorazy, Peter Bul, survivor of the lost boys of Sudan, and Marty Zak, the son of Holocaust survivors.
For a perspective on how hate can infect a person, MMOT has even brought in Jeff Schoep, a former member of a white supremacist organization.
MMOT visiting Indian Prairie was the result of library employees taking the initiative.
“I was looking at another library and did some research on it,” Kate Kresek, programming and outreach specialist, said. “Last year was the second year, and it goes all throughout Illinois. I think it can start important conversations … and it’s free, it’s ADA compliant.”
The library’s head of programming and outreach services, Amy Merda, credited Kresek for being the driving force behind MMOT visiting Indian Prairie.
“Many of these topics are also addressed in our local schools during the school year,” she said. “We serve multiple towns here at Indian Prairie.”
Indian Prairie Executive Director Laura Birmingham echoed Kresek’s sentiments.
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“I think it’s important to see it,” she said. “It starts a great conversation.”
The Mobile Museum of Tolerance will be at Indian Prairie Public Library from Tuesday, July 18 through Friday, July 21.
It opens at 11 a.m. daily and runs until 6 p.m. Further information of the exhibit can be found at the museum’s website, mmot.com
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.