About the Jim Crow Museum
Two of the three white men accused of murdering James Byrd Jr., an African American, are now on death row. On the night of June 7, 1998, Byrd was chained behind a pickup truck and dragged three miles, his head and one arm severed before his remains were left for police to find the next morning. A third defendant awaits trial for a crime that has even hardened journalists asking how human beings today could commit such a gruesome act.
The Starr Building on Ferris State University's campus houses a one-room museum that hints at the answer to that question. It's the Jim Crow Museum, a 4,000-piece collection of racist artifacts gathered, catalogued and donated by Dr. David Pilgrim, professor of Sociology at the University. Pilgrim is the founder and curator of the fledgling museum.
"The name makes sense because of the time period covered," said Pilgrim.
Jim Crow was an antebellum minstrel show character created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice in the early 1830s. "Daddy Rice" was a white actor who blackened his face with burnt cork and performed a song-and-dance act said to have been inspired by an elderly black man from the South. Rice's tattered costume and exaggerated movements and voice were an insulting parody that brought him international acclaim. The identity of the original Jim Crow, if he did exist, is unknown. Some say he was a slave in Ohio or South Carolina; others believe he may have been a slave owner. One faction holds that the name was derived from the simile "black as a crow." Regardless of its origin, the name "Jim Crow" soon became interchangeable with the word "Negro."
Late in the 19th century, several Southern states passed "Jim Crow laws," statutes that legitimized a racial caste system in America, a system to which Pilgrim is no stranger. He grew up in Mobile, Alabama where he attended segregated schools. One day while shopping, he saw a small "Mammy" figurine for sale.
"I bought it and destroyed it in front of the man who sold it to me," said Pilgrim.
For years after that incident, young David purchased and disposed of racially insulting items wherever he found them. The sheer volume of merchandise forced him, eventually, to change his tactic.
"I found them at flea markets and garage sales as a kid," said Pilgrim. "Items would offend me, and I'd buy them to destroy them. I got older and recognized the historical significance of these items. I stopped destroying them and started collecting them."
A Terrible Legacy Continues
Most of the artifacts lining the museum's shelves are ordinary household items -- sheet music, ashtrays, children's books, notepads, fishing lures, salt and pepper shakers, postcards, dolls, and matchbooks -- but they share a terrible legacy. Each item portrays or represents African Americans in a stereotypical, degrading fashion. Worse, many of them glorify the abuse, even the killing, of people solely because they are black.
"These were everyday items in very common use by average citizens," said Pilgrim, "not just (Ku Klux) Klan members."
Some of the objects are a century old while others were manufactured as recently as this year. "There's nothing in here you can't go out and buy today," said Pilgrim. "All this stuff is still being reproduced. And it's not being done by right-wing fascist groups. There's a new market for it in mainstream America."
The enactment of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s ended legalized segregation of restaurants, hospitals and cemeteries but did little to diminish the clamor for what is now labeled "black memorabilia." Collectors use jargon to soften the negative impact of their inventory. "Extreme ethnic" is their term for outrageously exaggerated stereotyping.
"There is a really strong market for these items right now," said Pilgrim, "and the more racist the item, the more it costs. At this point, the museum is not a true sample of what's out there. It's a sample of what I could afford. A lot of these items are in peoples' homes today."
Pilgrim hopes those people will donate their items to the museum, rather than display them in their homes, and some have done just that. "I went to work one day and found a 'jolly nigger' bank on my desk," he said. "Someone had left it anonymously, and I was glad to get it."
Disregard for Life
Viewing many of the items in the museum is a painful experience. A glass case holds a framed picture of three babies sitting in marsh grass on a sand bar. The caption reads, "Alligator Bait."
"It's not nearly as hard as it used to be," said Pilgrim. "As a youth, I was more emotional, and I still have moments..."
Dr. John Thorp, an anthropologist and head of FSU's Department of Social Sciences, explains the social and historical significance of these racist artifacts.
"The dehumanizing caricatures of African Americans, which are embodied in the various items in this collection, are an important part of American cultural history. At the beginning of the 19th century, these images were consciously promoted to defend slavery. During the later part of the 19th and into the 20th centuries, they served to justify the ongoing oppression of African-Americans. Their continuing reproduction underscores the bigotry and prejudice that must be overcome if we are going to become a truly multicultural democracy.
"These images force a person to take a stand for or against the equality of all human beings."
A Pragmatic Approach
Pilgrim continues to add to the museum's inventory.
"I want to show people that these images continue," he said. "The Internet helps. E-bay makes it easy -- I've purchased a ton of racial artifacts off their site."
Pilgrim anticipates some opposition to the museum, particularly from middle-class African Americans.
"They are embarrassed by these items," he said.
The boy who destroyed these items is now a man who uses them to educate others to a simple, important truth. Holding up a grotesque "extreme ethnic" Halloween mask purchased only months ago in a local store, he said simply, "This is not me."
Neither was it James Byrd Jr.
Crimson & Gold Magazine
Winter 1999
©Ferris State University