#TeachTheTruthWI

Teach the Truth Wisconsin

As people of faith, we believe it is everyone’s responsibility to do their part to create communities where every human being can live a life of dignity and respect.  In order to do so, we need to know the truth about the sources of the injustice that plagues our society. The roots of present-day inequality include past practices and policies of discrimination and oppression that continue to shape all our lives.

But neither the history of racism and injustice in the U.S. nor the positive contributions by people from diverse communities have been adequately taught to our children or widely acknowledged. To make matters worse, forces of white supremacy and racism around the country are demanding that our public schools, universities, and libraries remove books and prevent teaching about our nation’s history of racism, slavery, sexism, and violence against marginalized communities. We need to counter these forces by telling the truth about our history.

Join us once again for a Teach the Truth Wisconsin Week of Action, October 8-14th, as we lift up stories of our America’s, Wisconsin’s, and our communities’ past. This year, we are focusing on national holidays. What do we need to learn from the truth behind holidays like Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, or Mothers’ Day? What new holidays might we create that would lift up histories of resistance to oppression and victories over injustice? But we also welcome, as before, events that lift up stories of Wisconsin history at sites of significance for racial justice.

Click here to view previous years’ #TeachTheTruth events.   

How your congregation/organization can participate:

• Choose a holiday from the list provided or suggest a holiday not on the list. If you are choosing a holiday, research its history – its origins, the meanings it has had, and how it has been observed. If you can, find a location in your community where it is usually celebrated or that represents it. What has the holiday actually celebrated or commemorated – white supremacy and racial oppression, or real values of ‘liberty and justice for all’? What
  aspects of whose history does it obscure or misrepresent?
•  If you are choosing a site, select an appropriate location in your area, such as a marker, statue, archive, burial ground, or museum, or a site of historical significance that has gone unmarked. Research the history of the site and why it was significant. For example, was it a site of violence against an oppressed racial or ethnic group? Does it represent a policy or action by persons in power that created an ongoing injustice against a less powerful group?
• Create a poster, video, artwork or presentation based on your research that relates to that history. Then pick a date in the second week of October to present it to the wider community. Let us know the date so we can publicize it on a calendar of events for the week. Record the event as a photo, video, or text and send us the file. We will post it on the Taking a Faithful Stance for Racial Equity Facebook page. See our Teach the Truth toolkit for ideas, tips, templates, and ways to share your event in the local press, social media, etc. using the hashtag #TeachTheTruthWisconsin.

Questions?  Please contact Rabbi Bonnie Margulis