Masood Akhtar remembered the shock he felt when he first saw the viral picture of several dozen high school boys gathered on the steps of the courthouse in Baraboo to take pictures before their high-school prom and the majority of them had their right arms extended mimicking the Nazi salute as a photographer took a picture.

“The day that this event happened, I really started to think to myself: ‘What’s going on here?’” Masood Akhtar, the founder of We Are Many – United Against Hate, tells Madison365. “I thought this would be good chance for We Are Many – United Against Hate, who is dedicated to solving these types of problems. This unfortunate incident that happened in Baraboo that got national attention, we knew that we could help this school overcome this.”

We Are Many – United Against Hate is a non-partisan, non-profit, statewide organization of common people who are urban and rural, spiritual and secular, seeking equal protection for all, united against hate, bigotry and racism. The organization is rather new, but they have already organized huge events in McFarland and Mt. Horeb.

Akhtar reached out to the Baraboo High School principal and other school officials to have a series of meetings to talk about solutions and about the possibly of bringing Pardeep Singh Kaleka and Arno Michaelis of Serve2Unite to Baraboo to speak to the students.

Masood Akhtar, founder of We Are Many – United Against Hate

“I was really impressed with what I heard in those meetings face to face in terms of how seriously they were taking this incident” Akhtar says. “As they were starting to develop a plan, they were very interested in listening to the community. That was very powerful.

“It became clear to me that they were not really looking at this as a challenge but rather an opportunity to actually build upon and maybe one day become a role model for other schools to follow,” Ahktar adds.

Baraboo community leaders and officials collaboratively began planning a series of programs to discuss ways for the community to heal, learn and grow together with a message of unity, tolerance, love and learning. On Monday, Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m., at Al. Ringling Theatre, students and community members will have an opportunity to hear from members of a nonprofit called Serve2Unite at an event called Baraboo Acts. The founders are Pardeep Singh Kaleka, whose father died in the Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek in 2012, and former white supremacist Arno Michaelis. Serve2Unite’s mission is to make the practice of peace an attractive and valuable way of life to students, transforming school environments via fearless creativity and compassion, in interdependent partnership with local and global peace efforts.

“Both Arno and Pardeep will share their powerful personal stories about what happened and then how they changed their lives and became best friends,” Akhtar says.

A Q&A session will follow. All community members from Baraboo and the surrounding areas are invited to attend. “We’re anticipating 700-800 people attending the event,” Akhtar says. “It will be a great opportunity for community people to attend, ask questions, and even make suggestions that the school can incorporate into their strategic plan.”

On the next day, Dec. 18, the Baraboo School District will have a Thunderbird Day of Peace with Kaleka and Michaelis serving as the keynote speakers, and will host presentations on such topics as the History of Anti-Semitism, Social Media Literacy, Civil Rights, Diversity and Restorative Justice. Recently, anti-Semitic flyers were posted to the exterior of Jack Young Middle School in Baraboo and a video was posted online satirizing the photo and warning viewers to stay home from unity activities on Dec. 18. The City of Baraboo Police Department said that they do not believe two recent anti-Semitic incidents are threats.

The Thunderbird Day of Peace at Baraboo High School will be open to all teachers, students and administrators but will be closed to the public and press.

“This will be a great opportunity for young people to ask questions and discuss the history and root causes of hate,” Akhtar says.

Akhtar’s ultimate hope is that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction creates an anti-hate task force for K-12 education that can start looking into the root causes of this type of hate and explore educational programs that could and should be instituted so this doesn’t happen in the future.

“I think that if we can do that, to me, I think we can turn things around and I’m pretty confident that Wisconsin can become a role model to deal with hate at schools at all levels,” Akhtar says.

As for the tolerance events planned at Baraboo schools, Akhtar says he hopes people focus less on the terrible incident and more on the opportunity that Baraboo has now and in the future.

“I think what happened here in Baraboo we should take as a wake-up call, but also an opportunity, as well, to come up with a plan to overcome it as one team,” he says.