Lani Silver

Lani was a friend of mine for many years. She died at age 60 a few years ago. You can Google her name and get a sense of the many things she did. I often had coffee with Lani and discussed her projects. She was a feminist and a teacher, two things that mattered a great deal to her. We never argued because I always support sincere activists even when I disagree with them.

I bring up Lani now because a friend of mine has been working on a project for nearly 30 years. He has always been ahead of his time. Quite recently his field, the long view of history, has become an important field in its own right called Big History.

There was a recent conference on the subject and my friend knew many of the key people there from his years of work.

Thanks to Bill Gates there is now money flowing into this field. I suspect my friend will not be a beneficiary of the new influx of money.

This is why I am reminded of Lani.

Lani was the mother of the field of Holocaust survivor interviews in the United States. She trained many people and scoured northern California for every living survivor. She had thousands of interviews in her records. Lani was funded modestly in part by Bill Graham, the rock impresario. (That is the only good thing I ever heard about Bill.)

When the movie Schindler's List came along and was such a stunning success, the producer (Steven Spielberg) was moved by people he knew to spend time and money on Holocaust survivor interviews. He consulted with Lani and then proceeded to fund, lavishly, his own independent Holocaust survivor interview project.

Lani died young. I hate to think that it was because the big project passed her by.

The lesson for my friend in the Big History project is that if everyone of importance and relevance in your field knows who you are and what you are doing, it will be virtually impossible to pass you by. That means encouraging many people to support your project and having them feel that they are a part of the project. Part owners.