BIG RAPIDS, Mich.
(AP) — The objects displayed in Michigan's newest museum range from the
ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque —
a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common
theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors
cringe.
That's the idea behind the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which says it has amassed the nation's largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond.
The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University "is all about teaching, not a shrine to racism," said David Pilgrim, the founder and curator who started building the collection as a teenager.
Pilgrim,
who is black, makes no apologies for the provocative exhibits. The goal
of the $1.3 million gallery, he explained, is "to get people to think
deeply."
The displays are startling. The n-word is prevalent
throughout, and many items portray black men as lazy, violent or
inarticulate. Black women are shown as kerchief-wearing mammies,
sexually charged Jezebels or other stereotypes.
The shocking images exact an emotional cost.
"There's
parts in that room — the main room — where it's quite gut-wrenching,"
said Nancy Mettlach, a student conduct specialist at Ferris. "And the
thought that was going through my mind was: 'How can one human being do
this to another human being?'"
Pilgrim, a former sociology
professor at Ferris State, started the collection in the 1970s in
Alabama. Along the way, he "spent more time in antique and flea markets
than the people who work there." His quest for more examples was
boundless.
"At some point, the collecting becomes the thing," he
said. "It became the way I relaxed." He spent most of his free time and
money on acquisitions.
In 1996, Pilgrim donated his 2,000-piece collection to the school after concluding that it "needed a real home."
The
collection spent the next 15 years housed in a single room and could be
seen only by appointment. Thanks to the financial support of the
university and donors — notably from the charitable arm of Detroit
utility DTE Energy — Pilgrim's collection now has a permanent home,
which will have a grand opening ceremony April 26. Admission is free.
Today,
the school has 9,000 pieces that depict African-Americans in
stereotypical ways and, in some cases, glorify violence against them.
Not
all of the museum's holdings are on display, but the 3,500-square-foot
space in the lower level of the university library is packed with items
that demonstrate how racist ideas and anti-black images dominated
American culture for decades.
Visitors can forget about touring
the exhibits and retiring untroubled to a cafe or gift shop. Some leave
angry or offended. Most feel a kind of "reflective sadness," Pilgrim
said.
But that's not enough. If the museum "stayed at that, then
we failed," he said. "The only real value of the museum has ever been to
really engage people in a dialogue."
So Pilgrim designed the tour
to give visitors a last stop in a "room of dialogue," where they're
encouraged to discuss what they've seen and how the objects might be
used to promote tolerance and social justice.
Some of the objects in the museum are a century old. Others were made as recently as this year.
Ferris State sophomore Nehemiah Israel was particularly troubled by a series of items about President Barack Obama.
One
T-shirt on display reads: "Any White Guy 2012." Another shirt that says
"Obama '08" is accompanied by a cartoon monkey holding a banana. A
mouse pad shows robe-wearing Ku Klux Klan members chasing an Obama
caricature above the words, "Run Obama Run."
"I was like, 'Wow. People still think this. This is crazy,'" Israel said.
One
of the first rooms in the museum features a full-size replica of a tree
with a lynching noose hanging from it. Several feet away, a television
screen shows a video of racist images through the years.
The
location of the museum — in the shadow of university founder Woodbridge
Ferris' statue — also catches some by surprise. The mostly white college
town of Big Rapids is 150 miles from Detroit, the state's largest
predominantly black city.
Ferris, who later served as Michigan
governor and as a U.S. senator, founded the school more than a century
ago. He once said Americans should work to provide an "education for all
children, all men and all women."
Pilgrim, who is also Ferris
State's vice president for diversity and inclusion, initially considered
giving his collection to a historically black college, but he wanted to
be "near it enough to make sure it was taken care of."
Most of
the objects "are anti-black caricatures, everyday objects or they are
segregationist memorabilia," he said. Because they represent a cruel,
inflammatory past, they "should either be in a garbage can or a museum."
No comments:
Post a Comment