Lessons from a Jim Crow Museum Some of these images are vulgar and will offend members of the audience. The presenter did not create the images. The images.

Lessons from a Jim Crow Museum

Some of these images are vulgar and will offendmembers of the audience. The presenter did not create the images. The images are not meant to shock, but to stimulate honest discussion. Many of these images are found on three-dimensional objects.

David PilgrimVice President for Diversity and Inclusion

Ferris State [email protected]

The Jim Crow Museum

• This museum was founded on the idea that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance. The museum uses Jim Crow era objects to show that racism was wrong—and is wrong.

• We believe that racism must be confronted openly, honestly, and constructively.

• We have educated students, teachers, civil rights workers, politicians, clergy, and business leaders about race and racism.

I Hate the Whole Versus Thing

Pure Sociology• Pure sociology searches for

new knowledge. It pertains to the objective and scientific study of society for the pure knowledge.

• Pure sociology is not interested in practical use of knowledge.

Applied Sociology• Seeks to take what is learned

in pure sociology and use it for solving practical (social) problems.

• It is the practical application of sociological principles and insights to the analysis and understanding of a social situation.

Objectives Of The Jim Crow Museum:• Collect, exhibit and preserve objects and collections

related to racial segregation, civil rights and anti-Black caricatures.

• Promote the scholarly examination of historical and contemporary expressions of racism.

• Serve as a teaching resource for Ferris State University courses which deal, directly or indirectly, with the issues of race and ethnicity.

• Serve as an educational resource for scholars and teachers at the state, national and international levels.

• Promote racial understanding and healing. • Serve as a resource for civil rights and human rights

organizations.

Thomas Dartmouth Rice

In 1828, Jim Crow was born. He began his stage career as a minstrel caricature of a Black man created by a White man, Thomas "Daddy" Rice, to amuse White audiences.

Later a Synonym for SegregationJim Crow became a name for the

racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively, in southern and border states between the 1870s and the 1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-Black laws. It was a way of life. Blacks were segregated, deprived of their right to vote, and subjected to verbal abuse, discrimination, and violence without redress in the courts or significant opposition within the White community.

Jim Crow Was More Than Signs

Tenant farmershttp://www.americanradioworks.org/features/remembering/bitter.html

Jim Crow and ViolenceBetween 1882, when the first reliable data were collected, and 1968, when lynching had become rare, there were 4,730 known lynching victims, including 3,440 Black men and women. Most of the victims were hanged or shot, but some were burned alive, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered.

Waco, Texas---1916

"This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe.”

Detroit 1944: Pallbearers with casket walking in front of sign reading “Here Lies Jim Crow" during the NAACP Detroit branch’s "Parade for Victory.“

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery.cgi?collection=crow

Wishful Thinking

Racial Propaganda

Jim Crow attitudes, values, norms, laws, and etiquette were supported by millions of everyday objects that portrayed Blacks as intellectually, morally, and culturally inferior.

Anti-Black Female Caricatures

• Mammy: fat, dark-skinned, physically undesirable, sassy but obedient servant

• Tragic Mulatto: Self-loathing, self-destructive, pitiable alien

• Jezebel: seductive, lewd, hypersexual temptress

• Sapphire: rude, loud, malicious, stubborn, overbearing man-hater

Sampling of Caricatures of Black Men

• Coon: Lazy, chronically idle, inarticulate parasite• Tom: Docile, obedient servant• Buck: Hypersexual deviant• Sambo: Kowtowing, ignorant, childlike buffoon• Brute: Menacing, animalistic criminal• Savage: Third-world primitive• Nat: Whites-hating militant

Caricatures, Stereotypes and Prejudice

• This caricatured depiction distorts the behavior and appearance of Black men.

• The image expresses the stereotypes that Blacks are physically ugly, lazy and ignorant.

• The African American man is stereotyped as an ugly, slothful parasite, reinforcing prejudiced, negative attitudes against Blacks.

The Birth of a Nation, 1915

We are a learning lab—using objects of intolerance to teach tolerance. See, www.ferris.edu/jimcrow.

The objects created by a culture both shape and reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and values of that culture.

Everyday Functionality: Things You Can Use

1950s fishing lure 1940s astray

Not Confined to the Past

• All the objects in the JCM are still being sold.• All the images are still being used on new objects.• The image in the sign is from the 1940s, but the

sign was made in the 1990s.

Bullseye

Measuring the Racial Temperature

Every time there is a racial incident that receives national attention two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects are created expressing racial views.

Also From Café Press

From Them Exhibit

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)

Not (only) a Black Thing

Attitudes, tastes, and values are not only suggested by our behaviors but by the objects we create. The fear and hostility that we feel toward others is often reflected in the items we design, buy and sell.

Violating The Script

http://www.fadingad.com/blog/hillary_spy.jpghttp://www.scpronet.com/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2007/11/hillary20urinal.jpgMay 29, 2008

Border Patrol: Killing as Gaming

From Cafepress.com

The River is Dirty

“The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty; the activist is the man who cleans the river.”

H. Ross Perot Business tycoon and politician

“And it don’t stop.” Fabolous

Recommended Readings• Chafe, William H. et al. Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell

About Life in the Segregated South. New York: The New Press, 2001.• Gellman, David Nathaniel. Jim Crow New York: A Documentary History

of Race and Citizenship, 1777-1877. New York: New York University Press, 2003.

• George, Charles. Life Under Jim Crow Laws. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 2000.

• Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A.: The Way it Was. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1990.

• Raper, Arthur Franklin. The Tragedy of Lynching. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

• Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

• Wormser, Richard. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.