President's Message

Today's thoughts on the original vision for The Humanitarium: Center for Culture and Diversity . . .

The Humanitarium is now ready to pursue its original vision. Now is the time to state unequivocably the direction in which we must head: we must be a true center, a physical place where all people of this region can come to learn, to play, to create, and to continuously strive to reach our vision of understanding and celebrating human diversity, rejecting intolerance and bigotry and affirming our common humanity.

While working toward this vision of a "stand alone center," we will continue to have our offices in the Carnegie Center, pursue our intent to have exhibit space in the Embry-Lowenthal/Arts & Culture Center, and continue to do programming in a variety of community spaces.

We must be visible in our region, a powerful force for good that will become known throughout the region, if not the entire country, for our work on behalf of and with all of the diverse peoples who live in this region.

As originally conceived back in 1995, I thought of the organization as a combination of other museums/centers:

• The Museum of Tolerance (educational, interactive center, free standing building — exhibits, films, seminars, testimonies, etc)
• The Yerba Buena Venter (performing and visual arts depicting all of the cultures of the San Francisco area - also free standing building)
• The Balch Institute (ethnic immigrants and their experiences — both willing and unwilling "immigrants." This institute is an educational center that does exhibits and lectures and has an extensive library. It is in Philadelphia, PA)

The Humanitarium would differ from all of these by providing, through a variety of media (exhibits, performances, library — books, tapes . . . , speakers' bureau, study groups, etc. etc. . .) awareness of all kinds of diversity (racial, religious, class, age, gender, sexuality, body type, physical and mental ability etc.) our ultimate goal would be to have a unique physical location in downtown lexington where all of these "happenings" would take place. We also envision the Humanitarium as being a "center without walls" so that we can take our programs anywhere within our region and even across state boundaries.

As we began our organization, it became apparent that we would need to create awareness of who we were and what we wanted to accomplish by "doing" (bringing creative exhibits & programs to the region). The issue of who we were led to the establishment of a board of directors that "looked like" the people our center wanted to represent , and our advisory board became a "who's who" of educational and organizational leaders who could assist us in making a difference in our communities.

The board decided early on to begin to make ourselves known in our region by bringing or supporting creative programming that met our vision. Thus, we have, to date, been involved primarily in the visual and performing arts. A listing of programming to date includes the following:

1. "jeremy's story" (interactive exhibit with film — bias of many kinds geared to the middle schooler)
2. "And Then They Came for Me" — sponsored a play about the Holocaust. Play done by Lexington Children's Theatre.
3. Sponsored diversity films — film series about different cultures, marginalized minorities
4. Sponsored Richard Davis series — African American jazz cellist
5. Created a lecture series on Chinese medicine and philosophy as well as an evening of Chinese classical music and a three week exhibit on art treasures of the Lexington Chinese community.
6. We have joined with Georgetown College's mentoring program to teach diversity issues to high school and college students.
7. We are offering diversity programming to small groups who otherwise would be unserved.

These programs have been the "face" we have projected to our region to begin our marketing efforts. They have been held at a variety of locations (Public Library, Children's Theatre, Keeneland Education Center of St Josephs Hospital, Singletary Center for the Arts, etc) The Humanitarium is firm in its desire to collaborate with other regional and local organizations to achieve our common goal of understanding human diversity, rejecting intolerance and bigotry and affirming our common humanity.

We plan to further the Humanitarium's mission by the continued utilization of the performing arts/creative arts as an excellent way to move our organization forward and thus achieve our goals. But now we must move forward into the future; and the future is a physical, tangible center. It is my firm belief that, if all of the people who believe in what we are doing put a true effort into the creation of the center it will become a reality.

We doubt that, by itself, the arts will create enough community support or awareness. Accordingly, while we continue these artistic efforts, we will move strongly now to apply for grants to make this happen. In addition I would like to recommend an annual event, utilizing a speaker who would attract attention to our organization and its mission. Such an event could take a variety of forms such as a fund raising dinner or a major speaker with planned media coverage. (The U.K. Center on Aging could be a model for our efforts - it is known as the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging in honor of Colonel Sanders and John Y. Brown, who each made an initial contribution of $1,000,000.) Our goal should be to get similar types of contributions/commitments.

In the meantime, we will continue with the arts events while reaching for the creation of the "center." Both are essential and both are necessary for fundraising to be successful.

Our offices are currently housed at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning — a perfect partnership (for the moment) as the Carnegie Center shares (and is working towards) our mutual vision.

This is our dream, and so, we must take an aggressive approach. The original vision was the right vision: a huge, somewhat frightening leap of faith, but a vision that I, as your president, absolutely believe is necessary to accomplish our goals. I need to know that you will join me in this endeavor as we move ahead to create "The Humanitarium: Center for Culture & Diversity."

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