DATE=4/2/02

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-36130

TITLE=Jeremy's Story Teaches Tolerance

BYLINE=Leda Hartman

TELEPHONE=260-1623 (Editor)

DATELINE=Greensboro, North Carolina

EDITOR=Faith Lapidus

CONTENT=

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INTRO: A traveling exhibit, now at the Greensboro Children's Museum in the eastern state of North Carolina, suggests that it's never too early to talk with children about the issue of bias. "Jeremy's Story" offers parents and teachers an opportunity to broach the subject of prejudice with children. Leda Hartman reports.

TEXT: Although it's for children, "Jeremy's Story" is a serious exhibit. It focuses on complicated and harrowing topics… slavery, the Holocaust, child labor, AIDS. But it does so in a way that youngsters can understand… starting with a fictional conversation between an African-American boy named Jeremy and his grandfather. The old man recounts the family history, beginning with their first known ancestor.

TAPE: CUT 1 EXHIBIT SFX

(Grandfather) Abu Jikar was his name. When he was your age, he was probably the fastest and strongest boy in his neighborhood. (Jeremy) Where did he live? (music in) (Grandfather) In Inni, in West Africa a very dangerous place in 1745. Many black people were captured and sold as slaves, all around the world. (MUSIC DOWN AND OUT)

TEXT: It was the terrorist attack of September 11th that prompted the Greensboro Children's Museum take unusual steps to bring "Jeremy's Story" here. At the time, the museum had been looking for sponsors to underwrite the exhibit, which originated in Connecticut. Museum marketing director Stephanie Skordas says after the attack, funding looked uncertain.

TAPE: CUT 2 SKORDAS

But we thought, especially since the events of September 11th had happened, and the patriotism that came out of it, but also there were a lot of hate crimes associated with that - you know, people looking for a way to express their feelings the wrong way that we thought it was even more important to bring Jeremy's Story to this area. And we went ahead and booked it on our own and paid for it out of museum funds.

TEXT: In addition to Jeremy, we meet other, real-life children who showed courage in the face of discrimination. Ruby Bridges was six when she integrated the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960. Photos in the exhibit show the little girl walking up the school stairs with a federal marshal by her side… while irate housewives yelled in protest. Ruby's memories are recorded by an actress.

TAPE: CUT 3 BRIDGES

There were a lot of white people lined up on the street, shouting at me. I'll never forget all the noises. One thing they said was, '2, 4, 6, 8, we don't want to integrate.' 'What does that mean?' I thought. I liked the way it sounded, but I knew that these white people were angry at me and they would have hurt me if they had the chance.

TEXT: Ruby Bridges says she prayed for the people who resented her. For most of the year, she was the only child in her class, because the white parents had pulled their kids out. But today, the William Frantz Elementary School is integrated, and Ms Bridges now works there as a parent liaison. What she remembers most of all, she says now, is the support she got from the black community in New Orleans.

TAPE: CUT 4 BRIDGES

Everybody came together to help us. They cooked meals and bought me clothes. They did everything to keep me in that school.

TEXT: The exhibit also invites children to see what it was like to hide from the Nazis in an attic during World War Two in Europe. They can crawl through a cramped hallway… and meet a noted diarist, as an actress portrays her.

TAPE: CUT 5 FRANK

My name is Anne Frank. I lived more than 50 years ago. I am a ghost now. But once I was alive just like you.

TEXT: Anne talks about watching friends and neighbors being taken away by the Nazis, and about listening to bombs and machine guns… wondering if her family would be next.

TAPE: CUT 6 FRANK

We stayed hidden from the Nazis almost until the end of the war. But then they found our secret hiding place, and carried us off to a camp named Auschwitz, in Poland, where my mother died. Then they took my sister and me to another camp, named Bergen-Belsen, where we died. If I had lived, I might have children and grandchildren now. But all I have instead is my diary my words on paper that make a story for you and whoever else will listen.

TEXT: The stories of Anne Frank and Ruby Bridges are unsettling, even for adults. Still, Tray Matthews, who's here as a chaperone with his son's elementary school class, finds the exhibit compelling.

TAPE: CUT 7 MATTHEWS

I teach my son to love everybody, no matter what race, creed or color, because we're all the same kind of people on the inside. My father's Puerto Rican and my mother's Native American and black. So I just see no color. I just see people as people.

TEXT: Some students from the Guilford Country Day School in Greensboro are learning to do that, too. Hayden and Catherine, both fifth-graders, say the material in "Jeremy's Story" dovetails with some of the things they've been discussing in class.

TAPE: CUT 8 MONTAGE

(Hayden) Like we talked about the slaves, from a long time ago, and how people were mean to the immigrants that came into the country. (Catherine) And how they pushed the Native Americans away, when it was their country.

TEXT: And what do they think about people showing bias towards others?

TAPE: CUT 9 MONTAGE

(Hayden) I don 't think they should do that. (Catherine) Don 't judge 'em before you know 'em.

TEXT: After leaving Greensboro, "Jeremy's Story" will continue touring children's museums throughout the nation…profiling youngsters who showed courage in the face of discrimination, and in their own way, helped make the world better for others. I'm Leda Hartman in Greensboro, North Carolina.

TAPE: CUT 10 MUSEUM AMBIENCE, USE AS NEEDED

NEB/LH/FIL