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 Kennedy
I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades, I have amassed items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. Among my collection is a parlor game from the 1930s, “72 Pictured Party Stunts.” One card instructs players to, “Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon.” The card depicts a grotesquely caricatured black boy with bulging eyes and blood-red lips devouring a watermelon as large as himself. This imagery offends me, yet it is part of my collection of over 4,000 similar objects that portray black people as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures. I collect this garbage because I firmly believe that artifacts of intolerance can be powerful tools for teaching tolerance. This is why the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University exists.
A collection of Mammy salt and pepper shakers, examples of racist memorabilia housed in the Jim Crow Museum, illustrating the pervasive caricatures of Black women in American history.
My journey into collecting racist objects began in my youth. I bought my first piece when I was around 12 or 13 in the early 1970s in Mobile, Alabama, my childhood home. It was likely a Mammy saltshaker, small and inexpensive, as I never had much money. I remember hating it so much that after purchasing it, I threw it to the ground, shattering it. It wasn’t a political statement; I simply loathed the object itself. The dealer likely scolded me – in those days and in that place, he might have even called me a “Red Nigger,” a derogatory term used in Mobile at the time for outspoken individuals like myself. I don’t recall his exact words, but I’m sure “David Pilgrim” wasn’t among them.
Decades later, in 1988, I encountered another offensive item in an antique store in LaPorte, Indiana: a 1916 magazine advertisement. It featured a subtly caricatured little black boy drinking from an ink bottle. The caption read, “Nigger Milk.” The framed print was priced at $20, and the salesclerk labeled the receipt simply as “Black Print.” I insisted she write “Nigger Milk Print.”
A vintage advertisement for “Nigger Milk,” showcasing a racist caricature of a Black child, an example of the offensive items collected at the Jim Crow Museum to educate about historical racism.
“If you are going to sell it, call it by its name,” I asserted. She refused, and an argument ensued. I bought the print and left, marking my last confrontation with a dealer. Today, I purchase these items with minimal interaction, understanding the disturbing narratives they represent.
The Mammy saltshaker and the “Nigger Milk” print are far from the most offensive items I’ve encountered. In 1874, McLoughlin Brothers of New York produced a puzzle game titled “Chopped Up Niggers.” Today, it’s a highly sought-after collectible. I’ve seen it for sale twice, each time priced at $3,000 – beyond my reach. Postcards from the early 20th century depict horrific scenes of black people being whipped, lynched, or burned. These postcards and photographs of lynched black people sell for around $400 each on online auction sites. While I could afford one, I am not yet emotionally prepared to add such a visceral item to my collection.
Friends sometimes call my collection an obsession. If so, it began during my undergraduate years at Jarvis Christian College, a historically black institution in Hawkins, Texas. My professors taught invaluable lessons that extended beyond academics. They shared firsthand experiences of life as black men 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 violent retribution for appearing “uppity.” These were not tales of anger, but matter-of-fact accounts of daily life in a society where blackness was synonymous with inferiority, where “social equality” was considered a dangerous concept. Black people even knew their clothing sizes because department stores prohibited them from trying on clothes – the mere act implied a forbidden social intimacy with white customers.
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 the funeral on a small black and white television. Two years later, my family moved to Prichard, Alabama, an even more segregated town, in search of cheaper housing. Until recently, black people were barred from the Prichard City Library without a note from a white person. White people dominated local businesses and held all elected offices. I was among the first black students to integrate Prichard Middle School, an event a local commentator termed an “invasion.” We were children facing hostility from white adults and children alike. By the time I graduated from Mattie T. Blount High School, most white families had left Prichard. By the time I arrived at Jarvis Christian College, I was far from naive about the realities of racial dynamics in the South.
My college professors taught about historical figures like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Dubois. More importantly, they highlighted the everyday heroism of maids, butlers, and sharecroppers who risked their livelihoods and lives to challenge Jim Crow segregation. I learned to analyze history critically, focusing on the experiences of the oppressed rather than the actions of “great men.” I recognized my profound debt to countless black individuals, largely forgotten by history, who endured suffering so that I could have access to education. At Jarvis Christian College, I realized that scholarship and activism are not mutually exclusive – in fact, they are intertwined. It was there that the seed of the Jim Crow Museum was planted, though I was unsure of its ultimate form.
A fishing lure featuring a racist caricature of a Black person, demonstrating how everyday objects were used to disseminate hateful imagery and stereotypes, now part of the Jim Crow Museum’s collection.
While all racial groups have faced caricaturing in America, none have been as consistently and विविध रूप से targeted as black Americans. Popular culture has depicted black people as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, subservient servants, self-loathing victims, and threats to society. These anti-black stereotypes permeated material objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and countless other everyday items. These racist representations both reflected and reinforced prejudiced attitudes towards African Americans. As Robbin Henderson, director of the Berkeley Art Center, noted in 1982, “derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism” (p. 11). Racist imagery served as propaganda, bolstering Jim Crow laws and customs.
Jim Crow was more than just “Whites Only” signs. It was a pervasive system that resembled a racial caste system (Woodward, 1974). Jim Crow laws and social etiquette were supported by a vast array of material objects that portrayed black people as comical, contemptible inferiors. The Coon caricature, for example, depicted black men as lazy, easily frightened, perpetually idle, inarticulate, and physically grotesque idiots. This distorted image was ubiquitous on postcards, sheet music, children’s games, and numerous other everyday items. The Coon and other stereotypes reinforced the notion that black people were unfit for integrated schools, safe neighborhoods, responsible jobs, voting, or holding public office. I 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.
A matchbox depicting a “Sambo” caricature, another example of racist imagery used on everyday items to reinforce harmful stereotypes, collected by the Jim Crow Museum to illustrate the history of racial prejudice.
During my four years as a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I continued to collect racist objects. Most were inexpensive and small. I paid $2 for a postcard of a terrified black man being eaten by an alligator and $5 for a matchbox featuring a Sambo-like figure with exaggerated genitalia. My collection reflected my limited budget, not the full spectrum of racist memorabilia. The most overtly racist items were, and remain, the most expensive “black collectibles.” In Orrville, Ohio, I saw a framed print of naked black children climbing a fence to reach a swimming hole. The caption read, “Last One In’s A Nigger.” Lacking the $125 asking price, I had to leave it behind. This was in the early 1980s, before the prices of racist collectibles skyrocketed. Today, that print, if authentic, would fetch thousands of dollars. During vacations, I scoured flea markets and antique stores from Ohio to Alabama, seeking objects that denigrated black people.
Looking back, my years at Ohio State were marked by considerable anger. Perhaps anger is an inevitable emotion for any conscious black person, at least for a time. The Sociology Department, where I studied, was politically liberal, and discussions about improving race relations were common. However, as one of only five or six black students, I felt like a perpetual outsider. I doubted my white professors’ genuine understanding of everyday racism. Race relations were often treated as theoretical debates, and black people as “research categories.” Real black people with real lives and struggles were often seen as problematic. My suspicion of my white teachers was mutual.
A friend suggested I take elective courses in the Black Studies Program. There, 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 remained steadfast in his convictions despite facing ostracism and persecution. While not anti-capitalist myself, I admired Robeson’s commitment to his beliefs and his unwavering fight for the rights of the oppressed. James Baldwin’s novels and essays also resonated deeply, his anger finding a receptive audience in me. However, I wrestled with his homosexuality, a reflection of my upbringing in a demonstrably homophobic community where homosexuality was viewed as weakness and “sissies” were considered “bad luck.” Ignorance is not exclusive to white bigots. Progress is a journey, and I had much to learn.
I’ve long observed that Americans, particularly white Americans, prefer discussing slavery to 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 when black people worked without pay. But slavery was infinitely worse. It was the complete domination of one group of people by another, with the inevitable abuses of unchecked power. Enslaved people were whipped for disobedience. Clergy preached that slavery was God’s will. Scientists “proved” black people were a less evolved subspecies. Politicians concurred. Laws forbade enslaved people, and sometimes free black people, from learning to read and write, possessing money, or arguing with white people. Enslaved people were property – sentient, suffering property. The passage of time provides sufficient “psychological distance” for many Americans to grapple with slavery, often through a sanitized lens.
The horrors of Jim Crow, however, are not so easily dismissed. The children of Jim Crow are still alive, and they carry vivid memories. They remember Emmett Till, murdered in 1955 for an alleged interaction with a white woman. Long before the tragedies of September 11, 2001, black people under Jim Crow lived with constant terrorism. On September 15, 1963, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed, injuring twenty-three and killing four young girls. Those who lived through Jim Crow can recount this bombing and countless others. Black people who dared to protest Jim Crow indignities faced threats and violence, including bombings. The children of Jim Crow remember 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 communities where they were disrespected and unwanted.
Yes, many Americans prefer discussing slavery over Jim Crow because examining Jim Crow inevitably leads to the question: “What about today?”
A racist caricature depicting a Black man surprised by a watermelon, illustrating the pervasive and demeaning stereotypes that the Jim Crow Museum seeks to expose and dismantle.
In 1990, I joined the sociology faculty at Ferris State University, marking my second teaching position and third “real” job. By then, my collection of racist artifacts exceeded 1,000 items, stored in my home. I used pieces from the collection in public addresses, primarily to high school students. I was disheartened to discover that many young people, both black and white, were not only ignorant of historical racism but also doubted the severity of Jim Crow I described. Their lack of knowledge was concerning. I showed them segregation signs, Ku Klux Klan robes, and everyday objects depicting black people with tattered clothes, unkempt hair, bulging eyes, and clownish lips, eagerly pursuing fried chicken and watermelons or fleeing alligators. I explained the connection between Jim Crow laws and these racist objects. Perhaps I was too forceful, too driven to make them understand; I was learning to use the objects as teaching tools while still processing my own anger.
A pivotal moment occurred in 1991 when a colleague told me about Mrs. Haley, an elderly black woman who owned a vast collection of black-related objects and ran an antique store in Indiana. I visited her and shared my collection and teaching methods. She seemed unimpressed. Her store displayed a few pieces of racist memorabilia. I asked about her “black material,” wondering if she kept most of it at home. She confirmed she kept those pieces in the back, but I could only see them if I agreed never to “pester” her to sell me anything. I agreed. She locked the front door, hung a “closed” sign, and led me to the back.
The sight of her collection is etched in my memory – a profound, chilling sadness washed over me. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of objects lined shelves reaching the ceiling, covering all four walls. It was an overwhelming display of the most racist objects imaginable. Some items I owned, others I’d seen in price guides, and many were so rare I’ve never encountered them since. I was stunned, overcome by sadness. It felt as if the objects themselves were moaning, lamenting. Every conceivable distortion of black people was on display – a chamber of horrors. Mrs. Haley remained silent, watching me as I gazed at the objects. One piece was a life-sized wooden figure of a grotesquely caricatured black man, a chilling testament to the twisted creativity fueled by racism. Her walls held a material record of the immense pain and harm inflicted upon Africans and their American descendants. I was on the verge of tears. It was in that moment that I resolved to create a museum.
A price guide for “Black Collectibles,” indicating the commercialization of racist memorabilia and the escalating market for these offensive artifacts, a phenomenon that impacted collections like Mrs. Haley’s and the Jim Crow Museum.
I became a regular visitor to Mrs. Haley’s store. She warmed to me, perhaps because I was “from down home.” She shared that in the 1960s and 1970s, many white people gave her racist objects, wanting to distance themselves from racism out of embarrassment. However, this sentiment shifted in the mid-1980s with the publication of price guides dedicated to racist collectibles. These guides fueled a market for these items, with each new edition showing escalating prices and sparking a national pursuit of racist memorabilia. Mrs. Haley’s collection was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she refused 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. When she passed away, I heard her collection was sold to private dealers, a piece of news that deeply saddened me. I was heartbroken that she didn’t live to see the museum she indirectly 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 winter, I frequented antique stores; in warmer months, flea markets. I grew impatient, seeking to buy entire collections from dealers and collectors. Again, limited funds restricted me to smaller acquisitions.
A menu from the Coon Chicken Inn, a restaurant chain that utilized deeply racist imagery in its branding and marketing, now an artifact in the Jim Crow Museum representing the overt racism of the past.
In 1994, I joined a Ferris State University team attending a Lilly Foundation workshop at Colorado College focused on integrating “diversity” into general education. During the conference in politically conservative Colorado Springs, my colleague Mary Murnik and I explored local antique stores. Unsurprisingly, we found numerous racist items, both vintage and reproductions. I purchased segregation signs, a Coon Chicken Inn glass, racist ashtrays, and other items, along with 1920s records with racist themes from a dealer who insisted on discussing “the problem with colored people.” I wanted the records, not the conversation. My other teammate, John Thorp, and I spent hours strategizing how to persuade the Ferris State University administration to provide space and funding for a room to house my racist collectibles. After several years of effort, 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 unease. I was relieved to move it out of my home. I donated my entire collection to the university, stipulating that the objects be displayed and preserved. I never felt comfortable having them at home, especially with small children. They would wander into the basement and see “daddy’s dolls” – mannequins in full Ku Klux Klan regalia – and play with racist target games. One of them, I don’t know which, broke a “Tom” cookie jar, sparking two days of anger in me. The irony is not lost on me.
The museum serves as a teaching laboratory. Ferris State University faculty and students use it to study historical expressions of racism. It also includes items created after the Jim Crow era, crucial for demonstrating that racism is not merely a relic of the past. Scholars, primarily social scientists, also visit for research. Children are rarely permitted, and adults, ideally parents, are encouraged to accompany them. We urge all visitors to watch Marlon Riggs’ documentary, Ethnic Notions (Riggs, 1987), or Jim Crow’s Museum (Pilgrim & Rye, 2004), a documentary Clayton Rye directed and I produced, before entering the exhibit. Trained museum facilitators guide all tours. Clergy, civil rights groups, and human rights organizations also visit the museum.
A racist bean bag toss game, featuring caricatured Black figures as targets, an example of the dehumanizing games and toys that normalized prejudice and are exhibited at the Jim Crow Museum.
The Jim Crow Museum’s mission is clear: to utilize objects of intolerance to promote tolerance. We examine historical patterns of race relations and the origins and consequences of racist imagery. Our goal is to foster open and honest dialogues about America’s racial history. We are not afraid to discuss race and racism; we are afraid to avoid it. I continue to give public presentations at schools and colleges. Race relations suffer when discussions about race and racism are taboo. Schools that genuinely incorporate race, racism, and diversity into their curriculum cultivate greater tolerance. Conversely, schools that avoid honest examinations of race often exhibit a 1950s-like pattern of race relations, where racial stereotypes prevail, often unspoken, and racial incidents occur without a foundation for resolution, leading them to seek external “diversity consultants” to restore order. 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 simply shock visitors. A pervasive naiveté about America’s past exists in this country. Many Americans understand historical racism as an abstract concept – it existed, it was bad, but perhaps not as severe as minorities claim. Confronting the visual evidence of racism, especially thousands of items in a confined space, is often jarring, even painful. In the late 1800s, carnivals and amusement parks sometimes featured a game called “Hit the Coon.” A black man would poke his head through a hole in a painted canvas depicting a plantation scene, while white patrons threw balls – or even rocks – at his head to win prizes. Seeing this banner or a reproduction today offers a glimpse into the brutal reality of being black in the early Jim Crow era.
This carnival banner reinforced the idea that black people were less human, desensitizing white people to black pain and implying that black people didn’t experience pain like “normal” people – whites. It legitimized “happy violence” against black people and boosted the egos of white participants. How many marginalized white individuals vented their frustrations at the expense of “black heads”? “Hit the Coon” and its variant, “African Dodger,” were eventually replaced with target games using wooden black heads. The symbolic violence is undeniable. These games were popular during a surge in lynchings of black people. The Jim Crow Museum holds many objects depicting black people as targets, though we lack the carnival banner itself – an artifact that could powerfully illustrate this history.
Some truths are painful.
Anger can be a driving force, but it shouldn’t be the final destination. My anger peaked after reading The Turner Diaries (1978) by William L. Pierce, writing as Andrew MacDonald. This book glorifies white supremacists overthrowing the government, winning a race war, and establishing a white-ruled society through brutal violence against minorities and their allies. Arguably the most racist book of the late 20th century, it has influenced numerous hate groups, including The Order and The Aryan Republican Army. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was a follower, and his attack mirrored bombings described in the book. Reading all 80,000 words in one day while exhausted was a mistake. It consumed me.
Pierce, a physics Ph.D. who associated with Nazis in the 1960s, wrote the book, but why did it provoke such anger in me? I already had a basement full of racist memorabilia. I grew up in the segregated South and witnessed race riots. I was familiar with racist slurs and threats. Yet, The Turner Diaries profoundly disturbed me.
A vintage postcard labeled “Alligator Bait,” depicting Black children, reflecting the dehumanizing and dangerous stereotypes faced by Black children and part of the Jim Crow Museum’s collection showcasing historical racism.
Around that time, I led a colleague’s students through the Jim Crow Museum, exposing them to the Mammy, Sambo, Brute, and other caricatures inflicted upon black Americans. We delved deeper than ever before, deeper than I intended, and my anger was palpable. 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 on a riverbank, labeled “Alligator Bait.” She sat in stunned silence, grappling with the cruelty behind its creation. Her silent question hung in the air: “Why, sweet Jesus, why?” The white man, tears streaming down his face, stopped looking at the objects and turned to me. Before I could speak, he 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 genuine contrition. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear a sincere white person say, “I am sorry, forgive me.” His words diffused my anger. The Jim Crow Museum is not meant to shock, shame, or anger, but to foster a deeper understanding of the historical racial divide. Some visitors perceive me as detached, but I have consciously channeled my anger into productive work.
Most Jim Crow Museum visitors understand and support our mission, continuing the journey toward improved race relations. However, we face critics. The 21st century has brought a reluctance to deeply examine systemic racism, a desire to avoid discomfort that clashes with our direct confrontation of racism’s legacy. Many Americans want to forget the past and move forward, believing that ignoring historical racism will make racism disappear. It’s not that simple. Silence doesn’t equate to forgetting. America remains largely residentially segregated. Our religious institutions are mostly racially divided. Racial segregation is returning to many public schools. Race still matters. Racial stereotypes, overt or subtle, persist. Overt racism has evolved into institutional, symbolic, and everyday racism. Racial attitudes inform many decisions, large and small. “Let’s stop talking about it” is a plea for comfort – a comfort historically denied to minorities. Progress requires confronting both historical and contemporary racism in a setting that critiques attitudes, values, and behaviors.
Some visitors ask, “Why no positive items?” My answer: we are, in effect, a black holocaust museum. This is not to diminish the suffering of Jewish people during the Holocaust, nor to equate victimizations. But what other term adequately describes the horrors inflicted upon Africans and their descendants? Thousands died during the transatlantic slave trade. Countless more suffered under slavery, and even after its abolition, thousands were lynched. Many “white towns” exist because black residents were violently expelled.
A Civil Rights March poster, a symbolic image of the struggle for equality, representing the positive aspects of Black history and the fight against Jim Crow that the museum plans to incorporate in future expansions.
When the Jim Crow Museum expands, we will incorporate additional narratives. Exhibits will showcase the remarkable achievements of black scholars, scientists, artists, and inventors who thrived despite Jim Crow. A “Civil Rights Movement” section will feature images of protestors with signs like “I, Too, Am A Man,” highlighting unsung civil rights heroes. This section will represent the “Death of Jim Crow,” though its vestiges remain. Finally, a reflection room will feature a mural of civil rights martyrs of all races, prompting visitors to consider, “What can I do today to address racism?” We will also enlarge photographs of black people in everyday life, juxtaposing them with caricatured objects to emphasize that these objects are distortions, not reality. Kiosks will share stories from people who lived under Jim Crow.
Jim Crow was wounded 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 many, especially northerners. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed after President Kennedy’s assassination, dealt a significant blow to Jim Crow.
Books on racism and the Jim Crow era, representing the educational resources and scholarly foundation that underpin the Jim Crow Museum’s mission to promote understanding and dialogue.
Segregation laws gradually dismantled in the 1960s and 70s. Voting rights advancements led to black politicians being elected in cities, even former segregationist strongholds like Birmingham and Atlanta. Southern white colleges and universities began admitting black students and hiring black professors, often token numbers. Affirmative action programs pressured public and private employers to hire minorities. Black people gained more non-stereotypical representation in media. While racial issues persisted, Jim Crow attitudes seemed to be fading. Many white people discarded household items with racist depictions, like Sambo ashtrays and “Jolly Nigger” banks.
However, Jim Crow attitudes did not vanish and, in many ways, have resurfaced. The late 20th century saw white resentment towards black progress. Affirmative action faced attacks as reverse discrimination. The Coon caricature resurfaced as a depiction of welfare recipients. White Americans support welfare for the “deserving poor” but oppose it for those perceived as lazy. Black welfare recipients are often seen as indolent. The historical fear of black men as brutes re-emerged in portrayals of black people as thugs and criminals.
Black entertainers who profit from anti-black stereotypes perpetuate these images. The Mammy stereotype was replaced by the Jezebel image of hypersexual black women. Racial sensitivity of the 70s and 80s was derided as “political correctness.”
The current racial climate is ambivalent and contradictory. Polls show declining prejudice among white people, with a heightened sense 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 America has made enough “concessions.” Some resist government intervention and political correctness. And a segment still believes in black inferiority. Martin Luther King, Jr., once vilified, is now a hero, while black people as a whole are viewed with suspicion.
Racist Halloween masks, exaggerating Black features, demonstrating the persistence of racist caricatures in contemporary culture and the ongoing relevance of the Jim Crow Museum’s educational work.
In the early 1990s, New Orleans antique stores yielded few racist objects. Ten years later, they were readily available. Brutally racist items are easily found on online auction sites like eBay. Almost everything in the Jim Crow Museum is sold online. Old racist items are reproduced, and new ones are created. Halloween USA produces monster masks exaggerating African features annually.
The Ghettopoly board game, a modern example of racist caricature and stereotyping in games and popular culture, highlighting the continued need for education and awareness of racial prejudice, addressed by the Jim Crow Museum.
In 2003, David Chang’s game, Ghettopoly, sparked national outrage. Unlike Monopoly, Ghettopoly debases minorities, especially black people. Game pieces include “Pimp,” “Hoe,” “Crack,” and “Machine Gun.” One card reads, “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50 from each playa.” Instead of houses and hotels, Ghettopoly has crack houses and projects. Advertisements boast of “pimpin hoes, building crack houses,” and “getting car jacked.” Cards caricature black people. Hasbro, Monopoly’s owner, sued to stop Ghettopoly’s distribution.
The Pimp Daddy Trash Talker Doll, a contemporary racist toy, exemplifies the ongoing presence of harmful stereotypes in modern products and the importance of the Jim Crow Museum in challenging these representations.
David Chang claims Ghettopoly is satire. AdultDolls.net sells Trash Talker Dolls, including “Pimp Daddy,” a gaudily dressed black pimp doll that says, “You better make some money, bitch.” Charles Knipp’s minstrel-drag “Ignunce Tour,” featuring his blackface persona Shirley Q. Liquor, portrays black people as buffoons and criminals. Popular in the Deep South, protested in the North, Shirley Q. Liquor merchandise is also sold. When satire fails, it reinforces stereotypes. Ghettopoly, Trash Talker Dolls, and Shirley Q. Liquor portray black people as immoral and degenerate, echoing century-old caricatures. The satire is ineffective, but the creators profit.
Understanding is paramount. The Jim Crow Museum compels visitors to confront the issue of racial equality. It works. I’ve witnessed profound discussions about race and racism, with no topic off-limits. What role have black people played in perpetuating stereotypes? When is folk art racially offensive? Is racial segregation always racist? We analyze racist imagery’s origins and consequences, but we don’t stop there.
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 Ferris faculty members are trained docents. Traveling exhibits are being developed. Clayton Rye and I created a documentary about the museum. John Thorp served as director until retirement, followed by Joseph “Andy” Karafa. The museum is a collaborative effort.
My role is evolving. I have other “garbage” to collect. I’ve gathered hundreds of sexist objects, reflecting and shaping negative attitudes towards women. One day, I’ll create “The Sarah Baartman Room,” modeled after the Jim Crow Museum, using sexist objects to educate about sexism. Named after a 19th-century African woman exploited and mistreated in Europe, it will illustrate the intersection of racism, sexism, and imperialism. 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,” a traveling exhibit about Jim Crow horrors. In 2005, we began “Them,” an exhibit on objects defaming various groups, including women, Asians, Jews, Mexicans, and poor whites. Our goal remains: using items of intolerance to teach tolerance.
I’ll conclude with a personal story. Waiting for my daughter’s soccer practice, I watched white teenage boys clowning around. One wore a blackface mask and mocked “street blacks.” He turned towards our van. My daughter lowered her head, covering her face. If you’re a parent, you understand my feeling. If you’re black, you understand why I do what I do, why the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University exists, and why it is so important.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Feb., 2005
Edited 2024
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. The images in this book inspired Marlon Riggs’ documentary, Ethnic Notions.
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. This book remains a classic critique of Jim Crow laws and etiquette.
