As for me, I raced around the dumpsters collecting discarded “White” and “Colored” signs, thinking they would be some interest to posterity in a Museum of Horrors. –Stetson Kennedy1
I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades, I have amassed items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. In my collection is a parlor game from the 1930s called “72 Pictured Party Stunts.” One card instructs players to, “Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon.” The card depicts a dark black boy with bulging eyes and blood-red lips devouring a watermelon as large as himself. This card, along with 4,000 similar items portraying black people as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures, offends me. Yet, I collect this garbage because I firmly believe that items of intolerance can be powerful tools for teaching tolerance.
My journey into collecting racist objects began when I was around 12 or 13 years old. It was the early 1970s in Mobile, Alabama, my childhood home. The object was small, likely a Mammy saltshaker. It must have been inexpensive, as I rarely had much money, and undoubtedly ugly, because after paying the antique dealer, I smashed it on the ground. It wasn’t a political act; I simply loathed it, if one can hate an inanimate object. I’m unsure if the dealer scolded me, though it’s probable. I was what people in Mobile, both black and white, impolitely called a “Red Nigger.” In that era, in that place, he could have used that slur without consequence. I don’t recall his exact words, but I’m certain he addressed me as something other than David Pilgrim.
In my collection, I have a 1916 magazine advertisement featuring a slightly caricatured little black boy drinking from an ink bottle. The caption beneath reads, “Nigger Milk.” I acquired this print in 1988 from an antique store in LaPorte, Indiana. It was framed and priced at $20. The salesclerk labeled the receipt “Black Print.” I corrected her, stating it should be labeled “Nigger Milk Print.”
“If you intend to sell it, call it by its true name,” I insisted. She refused, and we argued. Ultimately, I purchased the print and left. That was my last confrontation with a dealer or sales clerk. Today, I buy the items and leave with minimal interaction.
The Mammy saltshaker and the “Nigger Milk” print are far from being the most offensive items I’ve encountered. In 1874, McLoughlin Brothers of New York produced a puzzle game titled “Chopped Up Niggers.” Today, this game is a highly sought-after collectible. I’ve seen it for sale twice, but each time lacked the $3,000 asking price. Postcards from the early 20th century depict black people being whipped, lynched, or burned beyond recognition. These postcards and photographs of lynched black individuals fetch around $400 each on eBay and other online auction sites. I could afford one, but I’m not yet ready to make such a purchase.
Friends sometimes describe my collection as an obsession with racist objects. If they are correct, this obsession began during my undergraduate years at Jarvis Christian College, a small historically black institution in Hawkins, Texas. My professors imparted more than just academic knowledge. They shared firsthand accounts of life as a black man under Jim Crow segregation. Imagine a college professor forced to wear a chauffeur’s hat while driving his own new car through small towns to avoid potential violence from disgruntled white men offended by his “uppity” demeanor. These stories weren’t delivered with anger, but with a matter-of-fact tone, depicting the everyday reality in a society where every black person was deemed inferior to every white person, where “social equality” was a forbidden concept. Black people knew their clothing sizes because they were barred from trying on clothes in department stores. Shared clothing, even briefly, between blacks and whites implied social equality, perhaps even intimacy.
I was ten years old when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. My fifth-grade class at Bessie C. Fonville Elementary, an all-black school in proudly segregated Mobile, watched his funeral on a small black and white television. Two years later, seeking more affordable housing, my family moved to Prichard, Alabama, an even more segregated neighboring city. Just a decade prior, black people were denied access to the Prichard City Library without a note from a white person. White people owned the majority of businesses and held all elected offices. I was among the first black students to integrate Prichard Middle School, an event a local television commentator labeled an “invasion.” Invaders? We were children. We faced hostility from white adults en route to school and from white children within the school. By the time I graduated from Mattie T. Blount High School, most white residents had left the city. I arrived at Jarvis Christian College with a stark understanding of Southern race relations.
My college professors taught about Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Dubois. More importantly, they highlighted the daily heroism of maids, butlers, and sharecroppers who risked their livelihoods, and sometimes their lives, to challenge Jim Crow segregation. I learned to analyze history critically, from the perspective of the oppressed, rather than as a linear narrative of so-called great men. I recognized my profound debt to countless black individuals, largely forgotten by history, who endured suffering so that I could receive an education. At Jarvis Christian College, I realized that a scholar could, and indeed should, be an activist. It was here that the idea of collecting racist objects first took root, though I was uncertain of its purpose at the time.
While all racial groups have been caricatured in the United States, black Americans have been targeted most frequently and in diverse ways. Popular culture has depicted black people as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and threats to society. These anti-black portrayals were consistently embedded in everyday objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and more. These racist representations both mirrored and shaped societal attitudes toward African Americans. Robbin Henderson (Faulkner, Henderson, Fabry, & Miller, 1982), director of the Berkeley Art Center, observed that “derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism” (p. 11). She was correct. Racist imagery served as propaganda, bolstering Jim Crow laws and customs.
Jim Crow extended beyond “Whites Only” signs; it was a pervasive system that resembled a racial caste system (Woodward, 1974). Jim Crow laws and social etiquette were reinforced by countless material objects that portrayed black people as ludicrous, contemptible inferiors. The Coon caricature, for example, depicted black men as lazy, easily frightened, perpetually idle, inarticulate, physically repulsive idiots. This distorted image permeated postcards, sheet music, children’s games, and numerous other everyday items. The Coon and other stereotypical depictions of black people supported the notion that black people were unfit for integrated schools, safe neighborhoods, responsible jobs, voting, and public office. I can vividly recall the voices of my black elders – parents, neighbors, teachers – urging, almost pleading, “Don’t be a Coon, be a man.” Living under Jim Crow meant constantly fighting against shame.
During my four years as a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I significantly expanded my collection of racist objects. Most items were small and inexpensive. I paid $2 for a postcard showing a terrified black man being devoured by an alligator and $5 for a matchbox featuring a Sambo-like character with exaggerated genitalia. My collection wasn’t representative of everything available in Ohio or elsewhere, but rather what I could afford. Extremely racist items were, and remain, the most expensive “black collectibles.” In Orrville, Ohio, I encountered a framed print depicting naked black children climbing a fence to access a swimming hole, captioned “Last One In’s A Nigger.” I lacked the $125 to purchase it. This was in the early 1980s, before prices for racist collectibles skyrocketed. Today, that print, if authentic, would sell for thousands of dollars. During vacations, I scoured flea markets and antique stores from Ohio to Alabama, seeking items that denigrated black people.
Looking back, my years at The Ohio State University were filled with considerable anger. I believe that anger is a natural response for any sane black person, at least for a time. I was in the Sociology Department, a politically liberal environment where discussions about improving race relations were common. There were only five or six black students, and we gravitated towards each other like outsiders. While I can’t speak for my black peers, I was deeply skeptical of my white professors’ understanding of everyday racism. Their lectures were often brilliant but incomplete. Race relations were treated as theoretical debates, and black people were reduced to a “research category.” Real black people, with genuine aspirations and challenges, were seen as problematic. I was suspicious of my white teachers, and they likely reciprocated.
A friend suggested I take “elective courses” in the Black Studies Program. I did. James Upton, a Political Scientist, introduced me to Paul Robeson’s book Here I Stand (1958). Robeson, a celebrated athlete and entertainer, was also an activist who believed American capitalism was detrimental to poor people, particularly black Americans. He maintained his political convictions despite facing ostracism and persecution. While I wasn’t anti-capitalist, I admired his unwavering commitment to his beliefs and his fight for the rights of the oppressed. James Baldwin’s novels and essays also resonated with my anger, though I was troubled by his homosexuality, a reflection of the demonstrative homophobia of my upbringing. Progressiveness is a journey, and I had much to learn.
I’ve long observed that Americans, especially white Americans, prefer discussing slavery over Jim Crow. All formerly enslaved people are deceased, their presence no longer a direct reminder of that horrific system. Their children are also gone. Separated by over a century, modern Americans often perceive slavery as a regrettable period where black people worked without pay. However, enslavement was far more brutal – it was the complete domination of one group by another, with the inevitable abuses of unchecked power. Slavers whipped enslaved people for disobedience. Clergy preached that slavery was God’s will. Scientists “proved” black people were a less evolved subspecies, and politicians concurred. Laws prohibited enslaved and sometimes free black people from learning to read and write, possessing money, or arguing with white people. The enslaved were property – sentient, suffering property. The passage of time provides Americans with enough “psychological distance” to address slavery, often through a sanitized lens.
The horrors of Jim Crow are harder to ignore. The children of Jim Crow are alive and have stories to tell. They remember Emmett Till, murdered in 1955 for an alleged interaction with a white woman. Long before the September 11, 2001, tragedies, black people under Jim Crow experienced terrorism. On September 15, 1963, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a black church, was bombed, injuring twenty-three and killing four girls. Those who grew up during Jim Crow can recount this bombing and many others. Black people protesting Jim Crow indignities faced threats and violence, including bombings. The children of Jim Crow can speak of the Scottsboro boys, the Tuskegee Experiment, lynchings, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the daily humiliations endured by black people in unwelcoming towns.
Yes, many prefer discussing slavery to Jim Crow because Jim Crow prompts the uncomfortable question: “What about today?”
In 1990, I joined the sociology faculty at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, my second teaching position and third “real” job. By then, my collection of racist artifacts exceeded 1,000 items, stored at home and used during public addresses, primarily to high school students. I found that many young people, both black and white, were not only ignorant of historical racism but also disbelieved my accounts of Jim Crow’s brutality. Their ignorance troubled me. I showed them segregation signs, Ku Klux Klan robes, and everyday objects depicting black people in tattered clothes, unkempt hair, bulging eyes, and clownish lips, eagerly chasing fried chicken and watermelons or fleeing alligators. I discussed the link between Jim Crow laws and racist objects. Perhaps I was too forceful, too driven to make them understand. I was learning to use these objects as teaching tools while grappling with my own anger.
A pivotal moment occurred in 1991. A colleague told me about an elderly black woman, Mrs. Haley, who owned a large collection of black-related objects and was an antique dealer in a small Indiana town. I visited her and described my collection. She seemed unimpressed. I explained how I used racist objects to educate students about racism, but she remained unmoved. Her store displayed a few pieces of racist memorabilia. I asked if she kept most of the “black material” at home. She confirmed she kept those items in the back but would only show them if I agreed never to “pester” her to sell them. I agreed. She locked the front door, placed a “closed” sign, and led me to the back.
I will never forget the profound sadness that overwhelmed me upon seeing her collection. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of objects lined shelves reaching the ceiling, covering all four walls with the most racist items imaginable. Some objects were similar to my own, others I’d seen in Black Memorabilia price guides, and some were so rare I’ve never seen them since. I was stunned by the sheer volume and the palpable sadness emanating from the collection. Every conceivable distortion of black people was on display, a chamber of horrors. She remained silent, observing me as I stared at the objects. One was a life-sized wooden figure of a grotesquely caricatured black man, a testament to the twisted creativity behind racism. Her walls documented the pain and harm inflicted upon Africans and their descendants. I felt an overwhelming urge to cry. It was in that moment that I resolved to create a museum.
I became a frequent visitor to Mrs. Haley’s store. She liked me because I was “from down home.” She shared that in the 1960s and 70s, many white people gave her racist objects, embarrassed to be associated with racism. This sentiment shifted in the mid-1980s with the publication of several price guides dedicated to racist collectibles, creating a market and driving prices up. Mrs. Haley’s collection was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she had no desire to sell. These objects represented our past, America’s past. “We mustn’t forget, baby,” she’d say, without a trace of anger. I stopped visiting after about a year, and later learned her collection was sold to private dealers after her death. This news deeply saddened me, especially the fact that she didn’t live to see the museum she inspired.
I continued collecting racist objects – musical records with racist themes, fishing lures with Sambo imagery, children’s games depicting naked, dirty black children – any racist item I could afford. In colder months, I frequented antique stores; in warmer months, flea markets. I grew impatient and sought to buy entire collections, but limited funds restricted me to smaller acquisitions.
In 1994, I joined a Ferris State University team for a workshop at Colorado College focused on liberal arts and diversity in general education. While in Colorado Springs, a politically conservative city, my colleague Mary Murnik and I explored local antique stores and found numerous racist items, both vintage and reproductions. I purchased segregation signs, a Coon Chicken Inn glass, racist ashtrays, and 1920s records with racist themes, ignoring a dealer’s racist remarks. My team member John Thorp and I strategized how to persuade Ferris State University to provide space and funding for a room to house my racist collectibles. After several years, we succeeded.
Today, I am the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery at Ferris State University. Unlike most collectors who find solace in their collections, mine brought me no comfort. I was relieved to remove it from my home, donating it to the university with the condition that the objects be displayed and preserved. I disliked having these items at home, especially with young children who would wander into the basement to see “daddy’s dolls” – two mannequins in Ku Klux Klan regalia – or play with racist target games. One child, unknowingly, broke a “Tom” cookie jar, triggering two days of anger in me, an irony not lost on me.
The museum serves as a teaching laboratory for Ferris State University faculty and students to understand historical expressions of racism. It also includes items from after the Jim Crow era, demonstrating that racism is not solely a thing of the past. Scholars, mainly social scientists, visit for research. Children are rarely allowed, and adults are encouraged to accompany them. Visitors are encouraged to watch Marlon Rigg’s documentary, Ethnic Notions (Riggs, 1987), or Jim Crow’s Museum (Pilgrim & Rye, 2004), a documentary I produced with Clayton Rye, before entering. Trained facilitators guide all tours. Clergy, civil rights groups, and human rights organizations are also frequent visitors.
The Jim Crow Museum’s mission is straightforward: to use items of intolerance to teach tolerance. We examine historical patterns of race relations, and the origins and consequences of racist depictions, engaging visitors in open dialogues about America’s racial history. We are not afraid to discuss race and racism; we fear the consequences of silence. I continue to give public presentations at schools and colleges. Honest discussions about race are crucial for improving race relations. Schools that genuinely incorporate race, racism, and diversity into their curriculum foster greater tolerance. Conversely, schools that avoid honest examination often exhibit 1950s-era racial dynamics, with unspoken stereotypes, racial incidents, and a reliance on diversity consultants for damage control. The Jim Crow Museum is founded on the belief that open, honest, and even painful discussions about race are essential to prevent repeating past mistakes.
Our aim is not to shock, but to address the pervasive naiveté about America’s past. Many Americans understand historical racism vaguely, acknowledging its existence but downplaying its severity. Confronting visual evidence of racism, especially thousands of items in a small space, is often shocking and painful. In the late 1800s, carnivals sometimes featured a game called “Hit the Coon,” where a black man would stick his head through a hole in a canvas depicting a plantation scene, and white patrons would throw balls or rocks at his head to win prizes. Seeing a banner or reproduction of this game today provides a glimpse into the brutal reality of being black during the early Jim Crow era.
This carnival game reinforced the dehumanization of black people, suggesting they felt less pain and legitimizing violence against them. It also boosted the egos of white participants. The “Hit the Coon” game, and its cousin “African Dodger,” were eventually replaced with target games using wooden black heads. These games, popular during a rise in lynchings, symbolize violence against black people. The Jim Crow Museum holds many objects depicting black people as targets. While we lack the carnival banner, it could teach profound lessons.
Some truths are painful.
Anger can be a driving force, but it shouldn’t be the final destination. My anger peaked when I read The Turner Diaries (1978) by William L. Pierce, under the pseudonym Andrew MacDonald.2 This book glorifies white supremacists overthrowing the government, winning a race war, and establishing a white-ruled society, graphically killing black people and other minorities. This book, arguably the most racist of the late 20th century, influenced numerous racist groups, including The Order and The Aryan Republican Army. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was a fan, and his bombing mirrored events in the book. Reading it in one sitting, while exhausted, consumed me.
Pierce, a Ph.D. in physics and a Nazi sympathizer, wrote the book, but why did it anger me so deeply? I already had a basement full of racist memorabilia and grew up in the segregated South. I was familiar with racial slurs and threats. Yet, The Turner Diaries shook me.
Around that time, I led a colleague’s students through the Jim Crow Museum, exposing them to the Mammy, Sambo, Brute, and other racist caricatures. We delved deeper than intended, and my anger surfaced. After three hours, everyone left except a young black woman and a middle-aged white man. The woman sat transfixed before a picture of naked black children labeled “Alligator Bait,” her face a mask of stunned sadness, silently asking, “Why, sweet Jesus, why?” The white man, tears streaming down his face, turned to me and said, “I am sorry, Mr. Pilgrim. Please forgive me.”
He hadn’t created the racist objects, but he had benefited from a society that oppressed black people. Racial healing requires sincere contrition. I realized how much I needed to hear a sincere white person apologize. His words diffused my anger. The Jim Crow Museum is not meant to shock, shame, or anger, but to foster deeper understanding of the racial divide. While some visitors perceive me as detached, I have worked to channel my anger into productive work.
Most visitors understand and support the Jim Crow Museum’s mission. However, we have critics, especially in the 21st century, with its growing reluctance to confront racism deeply. The desire to avoid discomfort clashes with our direct approach. Many Americans wish to forget the past and move on, believing that silence will erase racism. But ignoring the past doesn’t erase it. America remains residentially segregated, and racial divisions persist in churches and schools. Overt racism has evolved into institutional, symbolic, and everyday forms. Attitudes about race still influence decisions. “Let’s stop talking about it” is a plea for comfort, a comfort denied to minorities. Progress requires confronting both historical and contemporary racism in a setting that critiques attitudes and behaviors.
Some visitors ask why the museum lacks “positive items.” My answer is: we are, in effect, a black holocaust museum. While I hesitate to compare victimizations and trivialize the Jewish Holocaust, what other term adequately describes the suffering of Africans and their descendants? Thousands died during the transatlantic slave voyage, countless more under slavery, and thousands more were lynched after emancipation. Many “white towns” exist because black residents were violently expelled.
When the Jim Crow Museum expands, we will add three “positive” sections. One will showcase the achievements of black scholars, scientists, artists, and inventors who thrived despite Jim Crow. A “Civil Rights Movement” section will feature protestors and lesser-known civil rights workers, marking the “Death of Jim Crow,” though its vestiges remain. Finally, a reflection room will feature a mural of civil rights martyrs, prompting visitors to consider, “What can I do today to address racism?” We will also enlarge photographs of black people living ordinary lives, placed near caricatured objects to emphasize that those objects are distortions, not reality. Kiosks will share stories of people who lived under Jim Crow.
Jim Crow began to weaken in the 1950s and 60s. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared segregated schools unconstitutional, accelerating the end of legal segregation, though the Civil Rights Movement was still necessary. Images of black protestors facing police brutality shocked white northerners. The 1964 Civil Rights Act further dismantled Jim Crow.
Segregation laws were gradually eliminated in the 1960s and 70s. Voting rights led to black politicians being elected in formerly segregated cities. Southern colleges and universities began admitting black students and hiring black professors, albeit often in token numbers. Affirmative action programs pushed for minority hiring. Black people gained non-stereotypical roles in media. While racial problems persisted, Jim Crow-era attitudes seemed to be fading. Many white people discarded racist household items like Sambo ashtrays and “Jolly Nigger” banks.
However, Jim Crow attitudes did not disappear and have resurfaced. The late 20th century saw resentment among white people towards black progress. Affirmative Action was labeled reverse discrimination. The Coon caricature re-emerged as the lazy welfare recipient stereotype. Fear of black people, especially young black men as brutes, was revived in portrayals of black people as thugs and criminals.
The Mammy stereotype was replaced by the Jezebel image of hypersexual black women. Racial sensitivity from the 70s and 80s was dismissed as “political correctness.”
Today’s racial climate is ambivalent. Polls show declining prejudice, and a general consensus that racism is wrong. Yet, there’s growing acceptance of ideas critical and belittling of minorities. Many white people are tired of discussing race, believing enough “concessions” have been made. Some resist government intervention on integration, while others oppose political correctness. A segment of the white population still believes in black inferiority. Martin Luther King, Jr., once vilified, is now a hero, yet black people as a whole are viewed with suspicion.
In the early 1990s, New Orleans stores had few racist objects. Ten years later, they were readily available. Brutally racist items are also easily found online, including on eBay. Old racist items are reproduced, and new ones created. Halloween USA produces monster masks exaggerating African and African American features.
In 2003, David Chang’s game Ghettopoly sparked national outrage. Unlike Monopoly, Ghettopoly debases minorities, particularly black people, with pieces like “Pimp” and “Hoe,” and properties like “crack houses.” Cards read, “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50 from each playa.” Hasbro sued Chang to stop distribution.
Chang defends Ghettopoly as satire. AdultDolls.net sells Trash Talker Dolls, including “Pimp Daddy,” a stereotypical black pimp doll. Charles Knipp’s “Ignunce Tour” features his minstrel-drag persona Shirley Q. Liquor, a Coon-like black woman. Despite protests, his performances and Shirley Q. Liquor merchandise are popular, especially in the South. However, such satire often reinforces stereotypes, and distributors profit.
Understanding is key. The Jim Crow Museum compels visitors to confront the issue of equality. It sparks honest dialogues about race, with no topics off-limits, including the role of black people in perpetuating stereotypes and the line between folk art and offensive racism. We analyze the origins and consequences of racist imagery, aiming for deeper understanding.
I am humbled by the Jim Crow Museum’s national and international reach. Ferris State University’s webmaster, Ted Halm, created the website. Two dozen faculty members serve as docents. Traveling exhibits are being developed. Clayton Rye and I created a documentary about the museum. John Thorp and current director Joseph “Andy” Karafa have been instrumental in its success. The museum is a collaborative effort.
My role is evolving. I am now collecting sexist objects to create “The Sarah Baartman Room,” named after a 19th-century African woman exploited in Europe, to explore sexism. An African proverb says, “We do not die until we are forgotten.” I intend to ensure Sarah Baartman is never forgotten.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Carrie Weis and I created “Hateful Things” and “Them” traveling exhibits to address Jim Crow and broader forms of intolerance.
Finally, a story: Waiting for my daughter after soccer practice, I saw white teenage boys mocking “street blacks” in blackface masks. My daughter hid her face in shame. If you have a child, you understand my feelings. If you are black, you understand why I do what I do.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Feb., 2005
Edited 2024
1 Kennedy (1990, p. 234).
2 Macdonald & Nix (1978).
References
Boykin, K. (2002). Knipped in the butt: Protests close NYC drag ‘minstrel’ show. Retrieved from http://www.keithboykin.com/articles/shirleyq1.html.
Faulkner, J., Henderson, R., Fabry, F., & Miller, A.D. (1982). Ethnic notions: Black images In the white mind: An exhibition of racist stereotype and caricature from the collection of Janette Faulkner: September 12-November 4, 1982. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Art Center.
Kennedy, S. (1959/1990). Jim Crow guide: The way it was. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University Press.
Macdonald, A., & Nix, D. (1978). The Turner diaries. Washington, D.C.: National Alliance.
Pilgrim, D. (Producer), & Rye, C. (Director). (2004). Jim Crow’s museum [Motion picture]. United States: Grim Rye Productions.
Riggs, M. (Producer/Director). (1987). Ethnic notions [Motion picture]. United States: Signifyin’ Works.
Robeson, P. (1958). Here I stand. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Woodward, C. V. (1974). The strange career of Jim Crow (3rd rev. ed). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
