An exhibit aimed at teaching about the Holocaust as well as Black history is parked at different locations throughout Osceola County this week.
The bus is making the stops three years after Florida's Stop WOKE Act passed, putting restrictions in place on how history can be taught in Florida. Organizations like the Mobile Museums of Tolerance are taking a more active role in teaching history here.
The history of the Mobile Museums of Tolerance
It’s an unseasonably hot Thursday in May and about a dozen people are sitting on an air-conditioned bus in the parking lot of the Osceola County Library learning history.
The bus is one of two that have been making their way through the state based on the Museum of Tolerance in California.
Unlike the permanent museum, they don’t just teach the history of the Holocaust, but also the history of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in America.
All learning takes place aboard a 30-seat, wheelchair and ADA-accessible bus. On any given day, participants could be learning about the Civil Rights Movement, the story of Anne Frank, or participating in workshops aimed at empowering them to prevent hate and promote tolerance in real life and online.
The first Mobile Museums of Tolerance bus launched in Illinois in February 2021. Soon, there were Mobile Museums of Tolerance buses in California, New York, Canada, and now, Florida.
The mobile museums, since 2021 have educated more than 40,000 visitors on the Holocaust and Civil Rights history aboard buses in the parking lots of schools, houses of worship, libraries, police stations and parks. Grants and donations are used to cover the cost making it free to visitors.
Bringing Civil Rights history to life
Two groups from The Opportunity Center in Kissimmee boarded the Mobile Museums of Tolerance on this day. The nonprofit helps people with disabilities learn life skills and gain wider independence. With the group is teacher Ursil Douglas.
Douglas said it was an easy choice to bring her students.
“Well, it's important for them to learn about the Civil Rights Movement and, you know, equal rights opportunity and stuff like that,” said Douglas.
On the bus, students flipped down foldable blue leather seats and turned to face the movie theater-like screen on the opposite side of the bus, where the lesson was displayed. Educator Kaitie Martinelli introduced herself and welcomed them aboard.
She explained the history of the Mobile Museums of Tolerance, and the ground rules for the bus, which include respect for all participants. The presentation began with a brief PowerPoint that showed, instead of telling students, about what life was like for Black Americans in a segregated Jim Crow South.
Martinelli asked students if they noticed the differences in photos of benches for white Americans and benches for Black Americans, in water fountains for white Americans and water fountains for Black Americans.
Then, students were introduced to the story of Ruby Bridges, who desegregated her school in New Orleans, Louisiana in November of 1960.
Martinelli asked students to look at how Bridges carried herself in the photos, versus the angry white mob outside her school. She asked them to look at Ruby’s books, and then to look at the signs Bridges had to walk by every day, including ones that read, “All I Want for Christmas is a Clean White School."
In both instances, students raised their hand in participation and they also asked follow-up questions about who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was, and why he was assassinated.
To wrap-up, Martinelli led the group in a workshop that asked them to think about how they can be upstanders or people who stand up to hate and bullying, in their own lives, and in the lives of the people around them.
She started by highlighting some of the upstanders in the video, including a Black student who risked her safety to march. And also a white student who marched alongside and was arrested with the Black students.
Teacher Ursil Douglas said some of the footage in the movie, which shows marchers being hosed down and attacked by dogs and police, was hard to watch. But she said it was worth it.
“It was a little rough. But hey, something we have to, you know, come to terms with, and learn about,” said Douglas.
Why teach this history? “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”
Museum educator Kaitie Martinelli, said her passion for teaching history started when she was in college.
While completing her masters in library science her research centered on the Holocaust. She said she spent considerable time at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau, poring through historical documents that described the horrors of the Final Solution.
It was there that she realized the importance of teaching the history of oppression, and also liberation, whether that was Jews fighting to survive concentration camps in Nazi Germany or Black Americans fighting for basic human rights in the U.S. in the 1960s.
“I think that when you're fortunate enough to travel to these places, it also kind of becomes your responsibility to teach other people about it, to teach other people about the importance of these things,” said Martinelli.
That’s why she wants participants to not only learn the history, but to think about their role in preventing oppression and hate from happening today.
“It’s really important to learn this now more than ever, because these are things that happened really not that long ago, and some of these things are repeating themselves right now, so it's just important to make everyone as aware as they can be about this history,” said Martinelli.
The bus is in town three years after the Stop WOKE Act took effect in Florida. The law, largely struck down in court, still restricts how K-12 schools can teach about race, gender, and privilege.
Stetson University professor Rajni Shankar-Brown said despite the law, churches, nonprofits, libraries and museums like the Mobile Museums of Tolerance have stepped up to ensure Floridians have access to this history in the years since.
“Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, teaching the Holocaust: it's not about politics as people want to make it. It is about humanity. It is about justice. It is about preventing history from repeating itself. And we know that. You know, these histories show how hate becomes law, how silence can become complicity, and how ordinary people can also stand up and change the world,” said Shankar-Brown.
Shankar-Brown said one of the best ways to teach people empathy, is to teach them history, in all of its truth, in its ugliness and beauty in equal parts.
“Tolerance and empathy are not simply inherited, right? It needs to be modeled and taught. And growing our empathy muscles through learning and teaching, it never stops. No matter our age, and so I love that the Mobile Museum is bringing education to all ages and making it accessible,” said Shankar-Brown.
In January, President Trump signed an executive order preventing schools from teaching about race and gender. A separate order aimed at banning DEI programs in schools has been blocked for now.
Back on the bus, the Mobile Museums of Tolerance’s Kaitie Martinelli said regardless of what’s happening politically she will continue to teach history. Next up, the bus will be in St. Augustine for Juneteenth.
Here’s the list of stops the bus will make in Central Florida before it heads out:
Poinciana Branch Library
101 N Doverplum Ave, Kissimmee, FL 34758
- Thursday, May 22 – Civil Rights Workshop
- Friday, May 23 – Anne Frank Workshop
Workshop Times Each Day: 10:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 6:00 p.m.
