Here is something new for you. There is a Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids, Michigan at the campus of Ferris State University.
The museum was opened a few years ago. It was founded by David Pilgrim, a black man. He is the curator of the museum and the #1 cheerleader for the museum.
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 Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Mich. 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 recently expanded last year for the better.
From the YouTube Page: The renovated Jim Crow Museum opened to the public on April 1. The Pioneer took an early tour of the $1.3 million, 3,300-square-foot museum, located in the lower level of FLITE at Ferris State University. Museum founder David Pilgrim, museum assistant Lisa Kemmis and museum media specialist Franklin Hughes share their perspectives on the collection of racist memorabilia and the eight-year process of relocating the museum. A grand opening reception will take place at 10 a.m. on April 26 at Williams Auditorium followed by guided tours through the Jim Crow Museum.
I’m very excited to learn about this new museum. American’s, both black and white, love to engage in this revisionist history. They place a flowery twist on the gruesome reality of life in this country for blacks or African Americans.
I’m glad to see there are places like the Jim Crow Museum because it will keep the truth alive. It might be ugly, but it is the truth. And the truth is what we must embrace to properly give and guide our future generations.
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