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The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University strives to become a leader in social activism and in the discussion of race and race relations. "Many of today’s students have only a vague understanding of the dreadful impact of Jim Crow laws and customs." "More specifically, they lack a fundamental knowledge of restrictive covenants, literacy tests, poll taxes, and other oppressive features of the Jim Crow racial hierarchy". The Jim Crow Museum offers students an opportunity to learn about this period in the history of the United States.
Most of the objects displayed in the museum were created with the intent of belittling and humiliating African Americans. Nevertheless, the museum's staff believes that these objects can be used to fuel intelligent discussions about race, race relations, and racism.
Woodbridge N. Ferris, the founder of Ferris Institute (now Ferris State University), challenged faculty, staff, and students to "make the world a better place". The Jim Crow Museum is one attempt by the university to improve the world. This is seen in the museum's mission to "use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice".
The Jim Crow Museum is open and is free to the public. The Museum features six exhibit areas:
# Who and What was Jim Crow
# Jim Crow Violence
# Jim Crow and Anti-Black Imagery
# Achieving Despite Resistance
# The Battle Continues (contemporary forms of racism)
# A New Wave of Egalitarianism (positive representations of African Americans)
The Museum also offers a comprehensive timeline of the African American experience in the United States. The timeline is divided into six sections: Africa Before Slavery, Slavery in America, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Civil Rights and Post Civil Rights.
File:Understanding Jim Crow.jpg
File:Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors.jpg
Virtual Tour
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Memorabilia 1996 establishments in Michigan African-American museums in Michigan Stereotypes of African Americans University museums in Michigan Museums in Mecosta County, Michigan Ferris State University Figurines White supremacy in the United States History of racism in the United States Museums established in 1996
The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University
Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was founded in 1884 and became a public institution in 1950. Ferris is the ninth-largest institutions of higher education by enrol ...
, Big Rapids, Michigan
Big Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,601 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Mecosta County. The city is located within Big Rapids Township, but it is politically independent. Big Rapids is home ...
, displays a wide variety of everyday artifacts depicting the history of racist portrayals of African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
in American popular culture. The mission of the Jim Crow Museum is to use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice.
The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia has a collection of over 10,000 objects, primarily created between the 1870s and the 1960s. It also includes contemporary objects. The museum is named after Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
, a song-and-dance caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
of blacks that by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When at the end of the 19th century American legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against blacks, these statutes became known as the Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
.Woodward, C. Vann and McFeely, William S. (2001), ''The Strange Career of Jim Crow''. p. 7
The museum demonstrates how racist ideas and anti-black images were pervasive within American culture. It also displays artifacts related to contemporary forms of racism, stories about African American achievements, and the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
.
History
David Pilgrim, a former professor of sociology, and now Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion at Ferris State University, started to collect racist memorabilia in flea markets across America in the 1970s. By 1996, the collection had grown to over 2,000 pieces, and Pilgrim decided to donate the collection to Ferris State because "it needed a real home." The collection was housed for 15 years in a small space, utilized as a teaching tool for university classes. In 2012 the Jim Crow Museum was opened to the public as a larger, brand new facility, located in the lower level of Ferris State University's FLITE Building.Collection
The Jim Crow Museum houses over 10,000 artifacts; the majority of the objects were created between the 1870s and the 1960s. The largest portion of the museum's holdings is anti-black memorabilia, for example, mammy candles, Nellie fishing lures, picaninny ashtrays, sambo masks, andlawn jockey
A lawn jockey is a statue depicting a man in jockey clothes, intended to be placed in front yards as hitching posts, similar to those of footmen bearing lanterns near entrances and gnomes in gardens. Because of the prevalence of black lawn jo ...
s. The museum also displays Jim Crow memorabilia—books, signs, tickets, brochures, and photographs—that promoted racial segregation.
Mission
The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University strives to become a leader in social activism and in the discussion of race and race relations. "Many of today’s students have only a vague understanding of the dreadful impact of Jim Crow laws and customs." "More specifically, they lack a fundamental knowledge of restrictive covenants, literacy tests, poll taxes, and other oppressive features of the Jim Crow racial hierarchy". The Jim Crow Museum offers students an opportunity to learn about this period in the history of the United States.
Most of the objects displayed in the museum were created with the intent of belittling and humiliating African Americans. Nevertheless, the museum's staff believes that these objects can be used to fuel intelligent discussions about race, race relations, and racism.
Woodbridge N. Ferris, the founder of Ferris Institute (now Ferris State University), challenged faculty, staff, and students to "make the world a better place". The Jim Crow Museum is one attempt by the university to improve the world. This is seen in the museum's mission to "use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice".
Exhibitions
The Jim Crow Museum is open and is free to the public. The Museum features six exhibit areas:
# Who and What was Jim Crow
# Jim Crow Violence
# Jim Crow and Anti-Black Imagery
# Achieving Despite Resistance
# The Battle Continues (contemporary forms of racism)
# A New Wave of Egalitarianism (positive representations of African Americans)
The Museum also offers a comprehensive timeline of the African American experience in the United States. The timeline is divided into six sections: Africa Before Slavery, Slavery in America, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Civil Rights and Post Civil Rights.
Publications
David Pilgrim, the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum, has published two books related to the museum's collection and mission. ''Understanding Jim Crow'' introduces readers to the Jim Crow Museum and how the museum uses racist memorabilia to teach tolerance and promote social justice. ''Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors'' is a compilation of stories from the Jim Crow Museum.See also
* Jew with a coin *Racial segregation in the United States
In the United States, racial segregation is the systematic separation of facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation on racial grounds. The term is mainly used in reference to the legally ...
* Social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals ...
* African-American studies
* Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana (music), a genre or style of American music
*Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...
References
External links
* * *Virtual Tour
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Memorabilia 1996 establishments in Michigan African-American museums in Michigan Stereotypes of African Americans University museums in Michigan Museums in Mecosta County, Michigan Ferris State University Figurines White supremacy in the United States History of racism in the United States Museums established in 1996