Parallels Between Nazis, Jim Crow Explored

When the Fifth Baptist World Convention was held in Berlin in August 1934, German Baptists who saw Adolf Hitler as a nearly messianic figure got a different perspective from a particular set of delegates.

African-Americans visiting from the Jim Crow South recognized something all too familiar in the signs disallowing Jews from park benches, restaurants and shops, and it opened their eyes to the rising evil in Germany.

Victoria Barnett of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum pointed out the parallels during a program on “Religion and Public Life in the Holocaust and the Jim Crow South,” held at Georgia State University and sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Museum on Aug. 28.

The program also featured presentations by history professor Glenn T. Eskew and religious studies professor Monique Moultrie, who mentioned Stone Mountain, visible from the 23rd-floor windows of the Troy Moore Library, the venue for the free event.

The museum sponsored a program with a different angle on the Holocaust and Jim Crow on Sept. 27 in Birmingham: “Toward Healing and Reconciliation: Lessons From the Holocaust and the Jim Crow South.”

The museum is presenting another panel discussion in Atlanta on Wednesday, Nov. 1: “Americans and the Nazi Threat: What Did Georgians Know?”

University of Georgia history professor John Morrow Jr. will moderate a panel consisting of Alexis Scott, publisher emerita of the Atlanta Daily World; Derrick Angermeier, a doctoral candidate at UGA; and David Klevan, an education outreach specialist for the museum.

The discussion will include newspaper articles uncovered by volunteers, including pieces from the Southern Israelite, to show what the public was being told about the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s.

The free program starts at 7 p.m. at The Temple, 1589 Peachtree St., Midtown. Register at www.ushmm.org/events/nazi-threat-atlanta.