
Sixth-grade students at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School (BZAEDS) created a Civil Rights Museum with exhibits on Civil Rights figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Emmett Till, and Claudette Colvin. They served as docents for parents and fellow students as young as first graders. Among themselves, they discussed themes of tikun olam (repairing the world), the difference between “bystanders” and “upstanders,” and the similarities between the Civil Rights movement and Jewish history. The experience was an outgrowth of BZAEDS’s partnership with Facing History and Ourselves; professionals from that organization visited the student-made museum and reported back to the Crown Family Foundation, which has underwritten Facing History and Ourselves’ school partnerships.