Museum Honors Martin Luther King Jr. Day with Half-Price Admission

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, students and children ages 5-22 will receive half-price admission to the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center on Monday, January 19, 2015. This is an ideal opportunity for visitors to experience the Museum’s most talked about exhibition to date, RACE: Are We So Different? before it closes on January 25, 2015.

Over 7,700 students from almost 40 schools visited the interactive exhibition and participated in docent-led tours that addressed the three major themes revealed in the exhibition through a rich collection of interactive technology, video and photography: the science of human variation, the history of race and race in our culture. RACE is the first national exhibition to tell the stories of race from the biological, cultural, and historical points of view, and with race relations firmly at the center of the national conversation, the exhibition was especially poignant as students explored the historical moments and scientific evidence tied to race.

“The idea of ‘race’ has been used historically to justify mistreatment of people and even genocide,” said Illinois Holocaust Museum CEO Susan Abrams. “In the midst of racial tension surrounding Ferguson and other recent events, the RACE exhibition offers a forum for students and community to broach the subject and be inspired to promote racial justice and equity.”

“The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a perfect day for families to come to the exhibit,” notes Eileen Heineman, Racial Justice Manager at the YWCA Evanston/North Shore, “because it so clearly explains what Dr. King understood well: Systemic racism would affect the economic situations of people of color for generations to come. I have seen so many people looking at the display that explains this, and saying they finally understand the legacy of government programs that were not distributed equitably.”

Plays, readings and lectures have been organized by over 30 community organizations to help deepen the impact of the exhibition and engage the public in examining race through various lenses. On January 15, Martin Luther King’s birthday, the last of four Scholar Series, Race and the Economy: Jobs, Housing, Poverty will take place at the Illinois Holocaust Museum from 5:00-8:00 pm. Reservations are required. Learn more about related programming by visiting www.ywca.org/CPcalendar.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring the memories of those who were lost and by teaching universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice and indifference. The Museum fulfills its mission through the exhibition, preservation and interpretation of its collections and through education programs and initiatives that foster the promotion of human rights and the elimination of genocide. The Museum is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.; Thursday evenings until 8:00 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Learn more at www.illinoisholocaustmuseum.org .

Dedicated to eliminating racism and empowering women, the YWCA Evanston/North Shore seeks to raise awareness of the issues of racial and gender equity and to affect real change in our communities. Focused on racial justice programming, domestic violence services, women’s economic empowerment, violence prevention programming, and empowerment through aquatics, the YWCA Evanston/North Shore seeks to highlight and eradicate disparities that deny access and opportunity. Learn more at: www.ywca.org/evanston.