Wassmuth Center opens doors to new building

The late Bill Wassmuth, a Greencreek native for whom the Wassmuth Center of Human Rights is named, was a Catholic priest in Coeur d’Alene who led the fight against Aryan Nations and other hate groups.

Idaho’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights is opening its doors to its new building today at its grand opening.

The building, named after Idaho’s late Republican governor Philip. E. Batt, will provide a community programming space that the center did not previously have, Wassmuth Center Executive Director Christina Bruce-Bennion said at a new conference Tuesday morning.

“We work with young kids, we work with educators, corporations, and the community, but the center has never had a building to do a lot of that programming,” she said. “We’ve always done what we could do in the memorial or the library. This building is really kind of the next era for us of being able to house a lot of our programming inside.”

Built by Erstad Architects, the 6,000-square-foot building includes staff offices, classrooms, a Holocaust testimony room, a conference room, library and local artwork.

The grand opening is open to the public, and it will include a ribbon cutting ceremony and tours of the new building.

When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: 777 S. Eighth St., Boise

New building funded by Idaho community, foundations and corporations

The Wassmuth Center was founded in 1996 to build Idaho’s Anne Frank Memorial and to develop human rights education programs. Today, it is home to the only Anne Frank memorial in the U.S., a permanent display of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is recognized as an international site of conscience.

As a nonprofit, the Wassmuth Center received donations from almost 650 donors including individuals, foundations, corporations and other community organizations that gave the $6.4 million needed for the new building.

Some of the programs the center offers include a “Kindness Camp,” human rights book clubs, film and author events, a youth leadership program, an education fellowship, and many others.

One room, called the “Dimensions in Testimony” room, is solely dedicated to Holocaust education. It features a human-sized screen that will serve to display the testimonies of people who survived the Holocaust. The room was funded by the USC Shoah Foundation, a charity organization founded by American filmmaker Steven Spielberg to preserve and share testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

Idaho nonprofit promotes local history of combating discrimination

Some Idaho lawmakers do not support ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion in schools, and some say they do not believe discrimination exists in Idaho. Despite that, the Wassmuth Center’s mission is to “promote respect for human dignity and diversity through education and to foster individual responsibility to work for peace and justice.”

Just last week, Idaho Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, told Idaho House candidate Trish Carter-Goodheart, who is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, to go back to where she came from at a candidate forum.

While Idaho is not always at the forefront of combatting discrimination, there were times in Idaho’s history when the state was, Bruce-Bennion said, referencing when individuals in northern Idaho in the 1980s built coalitions to combat white supremacists.

“Unfortunately, we continue to see more examples that make the news of things like what happened at that candidates forum, than the examples of all the people who are working really hard to build coalitions across the state who are really trying to push back on this in so many different ways,” she said.

The new building is named after Batt, who fought for civil rights during his long tenure of serving the state in many capacities, including as a state representative, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor and chairman of the Republican Party.

Batt sponsored the bill that would create the Idaho Human Rights Commission, and he advocated for protections for the LGBTQ+ community, and policies that would make farmworkers eligible for workers compensation.

“He loved people — whether it was the farmworkers, the migrant workers — he absolutely loved people. All color, ethnicity, preference,” former Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne previously said at Batt’s March 2023 memorial service at the Idaho Statehouse. “It is a lesson for all of us how to treat one another. He personified the golden rule. And I believe that is why the Wassmuth Center is naming it the Philip E. Batt building. So appropriate.”

The work done at the Wassmuth Center is meant to help Idahoans understand the state’s history in combating discrimination and hate, Bruce-Bennion said.

“We have to understand and be able to know what our history is,” she said. “We have to be able to connect that to our current time, and know what actions we can take.”

Mia Maldonado joined the Idaho Capital Sun after working as a breaking news reporter at the Idaho Statesman.