It’s been a half-century, 51 years to be precise, since the Munich Olympics, marred by a Palestinian group’s terrorist attack in the Olympic Village, taking hostages from the Israeli weightlifting team on Sept. 5, 1972.

Less than 20 hours later, the drama ended tragically with 11 Israelis dead, along with a West German policeman and five members of the Black September terrorist faction.

One of the slain athletes was a Tulane University graduate and former NCAA champion, David Berger. Born and raised in Cleveland, he was a pre-law student at Tulane from 1962-66 and was an attorney when he went to compete in Munich.

Berger’s impact will be a focal point Tuesday evening in Natchitoches at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum in a 6 o’clock program featuring Lafayette attorney Warren Perrin.

Perrin’s recent book “The Weight of History, the Power of Apology” chronicles his own weightlifting journey alongside that of Berger and recent Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee Walter Imahara, a Japanese-American who spent nearly four years of his childhood in a California internment camp during World War II.

Perrin’s book focuses on the ways they all understood oppression and trauma – and why it’s important to remember Berger. That is magnified by the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip after the Oct. 7 attacks by the terror group Hamas.

Admission to the Tuesday event is free, and allows visitors access to the acclaimed museum. After the hour-long program, there will be plenty of time to enjoy the world-renowned Natchitoches Christmas lights display in the city’s downtown Historic District.

The museum is located at 800 Front Street, on the traffic circle at the north end of the brick-paved street bordering Cane River Lake downtown.