The contents of the suitcase more or less told the story of Emil Hess's life.
University of Pennsylvania report card dated 1939. A photo of him in his naval uniform during World War II. An advertisement for The Parisian, a department store he owned in the heart of Birmingham, Alabama's largest city.
And his son's recording explains how his father moved to desegregate the store in the face of conflicting protests from black customers fighting for equality and white patrons opposing it. .
The suitcase is now part of a new civil rights exhibition at Temple Beth El, Birmingham's historic synagogue where Hess worshiped. It was handed out to groups visiting the exhibition with the challenge: “Understand why he followed the activist's call when so many others did not.''
Did he have a genuine desire for fairness? Was he simply afraid of a boycott? Or did his intentions matter?
“Because you're in a fight right now,” said Melvin Herring, one of the visitors.Whatever the reason, Hess, who died in 1996, is in line with civil rights protesters. He pointed out that he began investing in the civil rights movement. their mission. Eventually, his store became one of the first to employ black salesmen. “He said, 'We're going to keep fighting.'”
Dr. Herring was part of the Black Jewish Alliance group in Charlotte. This organization was created to foster friendship between the two communities. The group was in Birmingham for a pilgrimage that has become increasingly common in the South, stopping at museums and landmarks related to the region's civil rights history.
Many of these places expose the horrors of the past or celebrate the movements that rose up against them. The Temple Beth She Elle exhibit focuses less on villains and heroes than on the many characters who fall in between. It is built on the premise that history is the sum of countless small decisions that gradually coalesce into big changes, like the decision Mr. Hess made to unite the Parisians.
“What we're doing is trying to show the messiness,” says historian Melissa Young, who helped organize the exhibit. “We're trying to show how complicated history is.”
Organizers argued there was value in listening to the rationale and regrets of those on the periphery of the fight. Participants may be forced to confront their own ambivalence and the fear of not being able to speak out about the injustices unfolding before their eyes.
“Instead of judging history as good or bad or assuming we were on the right side,” says Margaret Norman, the synagogue's programming director. With the resources they had? ”
The exhibit, “The Beth El Civil Rights Experience,” began touring in January for Jewish school students and groups from other faith-affiliated and civic organizations. Although this history is examined from a Jewish perspective, organizers see it as equally applicable to a broader audience. I recently got a call from a sorority in Nebraska asking me for a tour.
The Beth El Project was conceived in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd sparked a widespread reappraisal of the extent of systemic racism and the persistence of inequality. The congregation wanted to explore how Jews view the conflicting legacies of racism and activism that have shaped Birmingham.
“This is a very active memory here,” Norman said of the civil rights movement. “It’s not something you can do at arm’s length.”
But by the time the exhibit opened, the dynamics of race and identity had shifted.
In response to the 2020 racial justice backlash, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill stripping public funding from diversity, equity and inclusion programs and limiting what schools can teach about “contradictions.” Anti-Semitic acts, including bomb threats against synagogues in Alabama, have skyrocketed in recent years. Deep rifts have emerged over the October 7 attack by Hamas, Israel's ferocious response in the Gaza Strip, and calls for a ceasefire.
Organizers say the changing climate makes the exhibition and the debate it could spark even more urgent.
The exhibit was designed and organized by Birmingham filmmaker Tyler Jones, Ms. Young, Ms. Norman, and other members of the congregation. Tours are guided by devotees who have spent months studying this history.
This was planned with the understanding that many, if not most, visitors do not come to Alabama just to visit synagogues. (The state tourism office also offers civil rights itineraries.)
Organizers saw this exhibition as complementary to other, much more famous destinations. Examples include Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, where law enforcement officers violently confronted peaceful protesters in 1965, and more recent structures such as the Legacy Museum in Montgomery. and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which commemorates victims of lynching.
In fact, the group from Charlotte had stopped in Atlanta that morning to tour sites associated with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In Birmingham, the program began with a film describing the congregation's own response to the racial terror that gripped the city for years, including racists detonating explosives in houses of worship and activists' homes.
In 1958, an 18-year-old janitor named James Pruitt discovered 54 unsuccessfully detonated sticks of dynamite in a synagogue. (Mr. Pruitt visited the exhibition last month.)
“It's something that didn't happen. It's a bomb that didn't go off,” Norman said. “But at the same time, it's clearly something that has had a ripple effect.”
Many Jews were consistent allies of black civil rights activists. King praised Jews who “demonstrated their dedication” to the cause “often at great personal sacrifice.”
This kinship was based on a common history of discrimination, suffering, and endurance. However, this exhibition examines the limits of that connection.
The program includes footage of Suzanne Bearman, a longtime member of the congregation, speaking in public as a young woman explaining the need for laws to force desegregation because good intentions are not enough.
“I grew up in a white world, so I never knew what it took to be an advocate,” Bearman said decades later in the film on display.
“I joined this committee because if you want the honest truth,” she continued of her involvement in the exhibition, “you want to know that we're telling the truth about what we did in the '60s. Just to make sure, because I haven't.'' I don't think we've done enough. ”
After participants were divided into small groups, Dr. Herring and two others were given suitcases filled with newspaper clippings and memorabilia from Mr. Hess' life.
They debated whether he would have been involved if the threat of boycott had not loomed over his business.
“It seems to be a tacit understanding,” says Dr. Herring, a social work professor at Johnson C. Smith College in Charlotte. “But before the boycott, Emile knew this was wrong, but he didn't know how or whether he should get engaged.”
Ultimately, they decided Mr. Hess was in a tough position. But he also had power as a prominent businessman. And finally he used it.
Conclusion: “Why am I Emil Hess for the oppression of others?” said Dr. Herring.
“We're immigrants now,” said Andy Harkavy, another member of the group. “Now it's LGBTQ+. It's still Jewish, it's black, it's Muslim, and, and, and.”
“It's not that far off,” he said of the discrimination and prejudice documented in the exhibit. So, yes, what shall we do? ”