In Remembrance of the Pulse Victims
$16 (less for students and seniors). Sat., June 18, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 5th St. S., St. Pete. 727-820-0100. flholocaustmuseum.org.
One of the Americans killed at the hate-fueled massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, Christopher Leinonen, won the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award in 2002. One of the chief reasons? As a teenager, he formed a local chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance at Seminole High.
That's right, one of the people murdered in this past weekend's hate crime spent his teen years working to eliminate hatred towards gay people.
At the time of his nomination, his high school guidance counselor wrote of how Leinonen handled the turmoil he saw in LGBT teens, "struggles that left many feeling hopeless and silenced, exemplified at the time by a strikingly high suicide rate," Elizabeth Gelman, Executive Director of the Florida Holocaust Museum, wrote in a press release.
On Saturday, June 18, FHM will hold a 10 a.m. vigil on the museum's front steps. FHM will continue to remember the victims of this hate crime in the Harvey Hertz Prayer and Meditation Room, where museum staff asks guests to honor and remember the victims with handwritten letters. A one-day exhibit will feature photos of and stories about the victims.
FHM will donate all admission fees it collects Saturday to the Pulse Victims Fund.
"From the moment the shootings began at the Pulse in Orlando, there have been those who have tried to hijack this terrible event to push forward their personal hatreds and agendas, to foment more fear and division. This cannot be what we should be taking away from this tragedy. We should, instead, be focusing and building on the tremendous outpouring of love and support that has been flowing in from all over the country and all over the world," Gelman also writes in the press release, ending by imploring people to remember the words of Anne Frank:
"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
This article appears in Jun 16-23, 2016.