IN LATE January, the world lost a remarkable, caring person in Lani Silver. She was only 60, but she left her mark in this world and on the hearts of those who came to know her.

Lani, who lived in San Francisco, first came into my consciousness at a dinner in Jasper, Texas, the first banquet of the James Byrd Jr. Foundation for Racial Healing to honor people who made major contributions in promoting racial healing and understanding.

Typical of Lani, she came to help, to be part of educating people about how damaging racial prejudice and hate can be. Lani knew of what she spoke because not only had she been involved in recording the results of such destructive behavior, she continually felt the wounds of prejudice against her own ethnicity. Lani Silver was a Jew.

Kind words always emanated from Lani. She was hurt when the hate was aimed at her and Lani was always at a loss to understand why someone could be mean-spirited.

SHE VOLUNTEERED to do oral histories of anyone who wished to talk about their experiences with racism, prejudice and hate. Lani maintained that recording one’s journey through prejudice had a cathartic effect. She was right. I acceded to her request to do an oral history of my journey up from the times of Jim Crow laws through the realization and rebirth that our faith should lead us all to the rejection of any action or feeling that strengthens hate and prejudice.

While I felt my journey in race relations was where it needed to be, Lani’s quiet direction to speak from the heart about a lifelong progression out of prejudice was indeed a cleansing act. It also re-imbued in me the determination to always promote understanding and healing.

LANI DIDN’T come to the Byrd Foundation without qualifications and experience.

She related her conversion to activist at age 20. Lani and her parents were visiting South Africa. She saw apartheid up close and did not like the ugliness it thrust into her view. Lani announced to her parents, two people she described as very conservative and whose lead she’d always followed, that she was becoming an activist who would combat hate and prejudice in any peaceful way she could.

That’s exactly what Lani Silver did for the next 40 years.

She recorded more than 20,000 oral histories of Holocaust survivors. Lani’s devotion to the task was such that few exceeded her knowledge of that sad and horrible mark on human history. She was called upon for her expertise as a consultant to Steven Spielberg when he made the movie Schindler’s List, the story of a World War II German industrialist who saved thousands of Jews from extermination.

IN ADDITION to recording Holocaust oral histories, Lani taught classes on combating hate and prejudice in public elementary and secondary schools was well as colleges. She worked in talk radio and wrote countless stories and opinion pieces for a long list of publications all over the nation.

Lani was someone who never stopped learning about those subjects in which she held great interest. She came to Texas at least twice a year since 1999. She taught wherever she could find a venue and recorded as many histories as possible on every trip. She talked to any and everyone who had any knowledge or understanding of any aspect of the Byrd case. Lani wanted to know not only who, what, where and when but why and how as well.

As I came to know her better, she related encounters with people in town who greeted her warmly, conversing happily…until they discovered she was Jewish. Lani said, “You could see their whole demeanor change and they would become curt and, sometimes, very nasty.” She always said it with no small amount of bewilderment.

All she ever wanted anyone to do was eliminate hate and prejudice.

LAST SUMMER, Lani found she had brain tumors. One was cancerous and inoperable. For the rest of her time, she said she was “going to enjoy each day of this wonderful life.” And she did.

Those who condemned her because she was a Jew would be startled to learn of one of Lani’s “most enjoyable” experiences. She told me that almost every summer for the last 15 years, she attended a gospel singing camp. Plus, she loved East Texas fried catfish.

I’m a better person for having known Lani Silver, someone who loved everyone.

Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher. He can be reached by email at wwebb@wildblue.net.