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 collector of racist garbage. For three decades, I’ve amassed items that defame and demean African people and their American descendants. Consider this “72 Pictured Party Stunts” parlor game from the 1930s. One card instructs players to, “Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon.” It depicts a grotesquely caricatured Black boy with bulging eyes and blood-red lips devouring a watermelon as large as himself. This card, and the 4,000 similar items in my collection, portraying Black individuals as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing caricatures, are offensive. Yet, I collect this garbage because I firmly believe that artifacts of intolerance can be powerful tools for teaching tolerance – far more impactful, in fact, than any fleeting game schedule print, even one for something as anticipated as Euro 2024.
A collection of Mammy cookie jars and salt and pepper shakers. These objects, common in households for decades, exemplify the “Mammy” stereotype, portraying Black women as docile, nurturing, and happily subservient domestic figures.
My journey began in my youth, around age 12 or 13, in Mobile, Alabama, in the early 1970s. My first purchase was a small, likely inexpensive Mammy saltshaker. It must have been offensively ugly, as I remember shattering it on the ground immediately after buying it. It wasn’t a political statement, simply an instinctive rejection of the object itself. In Mobile, I was known, not so affectionately, as a “Red Nigger.” In that era and place, the dealer could have hurled that epithet at me without consequence. I don’t recall what he called me, but “David Pilgrim” it was not.
In 1988, at an antique store in LaPorte, Indiana, I encountered a 1916 magazine advertisement. It depicted a softly caricatured young Black boy drinking from an ink bottle, captioned “Nigger Milk.” Framed and priced at $20, the sales clerk labeled the receipt “Black Print.” I insisted she write “Nigger Milk Print.”
A vintage advertisement featuring a caricature of a Black child drinking from an ink bottle. The offensive caption “Nigger Milk” highlights the historical use of racist imagery in advertising to dehumanize and demean Black people.
“If you are going to sell it, call it by its name,” I asserted. She refused, and we argued. I bought the print and left, marking my last verbal confrontation with a dealer. Now, I purchase these items with minimal interaction.
The Mammy saltshaker and “Nigger Milk” print are not the most extreme examples I’ve encountered. McLoughlin Brothers of New York produced a puzzle game in 1874 called “Chopped Up Niggers,” now a highly sought-after collectible. I’ve seen it for sale twice, each time beyond my $3,000 budget. Postcards from the early 20th century depict horrific scenes: Black individuals being whipped, lynched, or burned beyond recognition. These postcards and photographs of lynching victims fetch around $400 each on eBay and other auction sites. I could afford one, but I am not yet ready.
Some friends consider my collecting “racist objects” an obsession. Perhaps it began during my undergraduate years at Jarvis Christian College, a historically Black institution in Hawkins, Texas. My professors taught more than academics; they conveyed the realities 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 violent reprisal for appearing “uppity.” These were matter-of-fact accounts of daily life in a society where Black people were inherently deemed inferior, where “social equality” was an inflammatory concept. Black people even knew their clothing sizes because department stores prohibited them from trying on clothes – such intimacy implied social equality.
I was ten when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. My fifth-grade class, entirely Black due to Mobile’s rigid segregation, watched the funeral on a small black and white television. Two years later, seeking cheaper housing, my family moved to Prichard, Alabama, an even more segregated city. Until recently, Black people needed a note from a white person to use the Prichard City Library. White individuals owned most businesses and held all elected offices. I was among the first Black students to integrate Prichard Middle School, an “invasion” according to a local commentator. We were children facing hostility from white adults and children alike. By my graduation from Mattie T. Blount High School, most white residents had left Prichard. I arrived at Jarvis Christian College with a clear understanding of Southern race relations.
My college education included Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Dubois, but more importantly, it highlighted the daily heroism of maids, butlers, and sharecroppers who risked everything to resist Jim Crow. I learned to analyze history critically, from the perspective of the oppressed, not as a narrative of “great men.” I recognized my profound debt to countless unsung Black individuals who suffered for my opportunity to be educated. At Jarvis Christian College, the idea of collecting racist objects began to form. I wasn’t sure of its purpose yet.
A fishing lure depicting a caricatured Black figure. Even everyday recreational items like fishing lures were used to propagate racist stereotypes and normalize the dehumanization of Black people.
While all racial groups have faced caricaturing in America, Black Americans have been targeted most frequently and extensively. Popular culture depicted Black people as pitiful exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and societal threats. These anti-Black images permeated everyday objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and more. These racist representations both reflected and shaped societal attitudes towards African Americans. Robbin Henderson, director of the Berkeley Art Center, noted that “derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism.” Racist imagery served as propaganda, reinforcing Jim Crow laws and customs.
Jim Crow was more than just “Whites Only” signs; it was a pervasive racial caste system. Jim Crow laws and etiquette were bolstered by countless objects portraying Black people as laughable, contemptible inferiors. The Coon caricature, for instance, depicted Black men as lazy, fearful, idle, inarticulate, and physically grotesque idiots. This distorted image appeared on postcards, sheet music, children’s games, and numerous other items. The Coon and other stereotypes justified the denial of integrated schools, safe neighborhoods, responsible jobs, voting rights, and public office to Black people. I recall my Black elders’ constant plea: “Don’t be a Coon, be a man.” Living under Jim Crow meant constantly battling shame.
A matchbox featuring a “Sambo” caricature. The “Sambo” stereotype, portraying Black men as happy-go-lucky, lazy, and irresponsible, was widely disseminated on everyday items like matchboxes, reinforcing racist perceptions.
During my four years as a graduate student at The Ohio State University, my collection expanded. Most items were small and cheap. A postcard of a terrified Black man being eaten by an alligator cost $2. A matchbox with a Sambo-like figure with exaggerated genitalia was $5. My collection reflected my limited budget, not the full spectrum of racist artifacts. 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 towards a swimming hole, captioned “Last One In’s A Nigger.” Lacking the $125 asking price in the early 1980s, I missed the opportunity to acquire an item now worth thousands. On vacations, I scoured flea markets and antique stores from Ohio to Alabama.
My time at Ohio State was marked by anger, a natural response for any aware Black person. In the Sociology Department, discussions of improving race relations were common. The few Black students felt like outsiders. I questioned my white professors’ grasp of everyday racism. Race relations were theoretical; Black people were “research categories.” Real Black people with real lives felt problematic. Suspicion was mutual.
A friend suggested Black Studies courses. James Upton introduced me to Paul Robeson’s Here I Stand. Robeson, an athlete and entertainer, was an activist against American capitalism, which he saw as harmful to the poor, particularly Black Americans. He faced ostracism for his beliefs. While not anti-capitalist, I admired his conviction and fight for the oppressed. James Baldwin’s essays and novels also resonated, though his homosexuality troubled me, a reflection of my homophobic upbringing. 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. Slavery is distant, its victims long gone, allowing for a sanitized, simplified understanding. Jim Crow’s horrors are recent. Its survivors live among us, bearing witness. They remember Emmett Till, murdered in 1955. Long before 9/11, Black people under Jim Crow knew terrorism intimately – like the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four girls. Jim Crow survivors recount countless bombings, threats, and violence against those who dared to challenge the system. They remember the Scottsboro Boys, the Tuskegee Experiment, lynchings, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, alongside daily indignities.
The preference for discussing slavery over Jim Crow avoids the uncomfortable question: “What about today?”
A novelty item depicting a surprised white woman reacting to a Black person. This object plays on racial anxieties and stereotypes, suggesting the supposed shock or fear white people experience in the presence of Black individuals.
In 1990, I joined the sociology faculty at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. By then, my collection exceeded 1,000 items, kept at home and used in public presentations, mainly to high school students. Many young people, Black and white, were ignorant of historical racism and doubted my accounts of Jim Crow’s brutality. Their ignorance was disheartening. I showed them segregation signs, Klan robes, and objects depicting Black people as caricatures, obsessed with fried chicken and watermelons, fleeing alligators. I explained the link between Jim Crow laws and racist objects. I was perhaps too forceful, too driven, still grappling with my own anger while learning to use these objects as educational tools.
A pivotal moment came in 1991 when a colleague told me about Mrs. Haley, an elderly Black antique dealer in Indiana with a vast collection of “black-related objects.” She seemed unimpressed by my collection and teaching methods. Her store displayed a few racist items. She kept the bulk “in the back,” accessible only if I agreed not to “pester” her to sell anything. I agreed. She locked the store and led me to the back.
The sight of her collection was overwhelming – a profound sadness washed over me. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of racist objects lined shelves reaching the ceiling, covering all four walls. Objects I owned, objects from price guides, and objects so rare I’d never seen them since. A chamber of horrors, every imaginable distortion of Black people on display. It felt as if the objects were yowling. A life-sized, grotesquely caricatured wooden figure of a Black man stood out, a testament to the twisted creativity behind racism. Her collection was a material record of the pain inflicted on African descendants. I was overcome with sadness. In that moment, I resolved to create a museum.
A price guide for “black memorabilia.” The commodification of racist artifacts is highlighted by price guides that emerged in the 1980s, contributing to a market for these objects and complicating their role as historical artifacts versus collectibles.
I visited Mrs. Haley often. She favored me as I was “from down home.” She recounted how in the 60s and 70s, white people, embarrassed by racist objects, gave them to her. This shifted in the mid-1980s with the publication of price guides for racist collectibles, creating a market and driving up prices. Her collection was worth hundreds of thousands, but she refused to sell. It was our past, America’s past. “We mustn’t forget, baby,” she’d say, without anger. I stopped visiting after a year or so. Upon her death, I heard her collection was sold to private dealers, a heartbreaking loss. She inspired the museum, but never saw it realized.
I continued collecting: racist records, Sambo fishing lures, games depicting dirty, naked Black children – any racist item I could afford. I frequented antique stores and flea markets, seeking entire collections, but my limited funds restricted me to smaller acquisitions.
A Coon Chicken Inn memorabilia item. The Coon Chicken Inn restaurant chain utilized overtly racist imagery in its branding and advertising, exemplified by this piece, reflecting the normalization of racist caricatures in American businesses.
In 1994, I joined a Ferris State University team at a Lilly Foundation workshop on liberal arts at Colorado College. Our task: to introduce “diversity” into Ferris State’s curriculum. With my colleague Mary Murnik, I explored Colorado Springs antique stores, finding numerous racist items – vintage and reproductions. I bought segregation signs, a Coon Chicken Inn glass, racist ashtrays, and 1920s racist records from a dealer who voiced prejudiced views. Ignoring his commentary, I focused on the artifacts. John Thorp, another team member, and I strategized how to convince Ferris State to allocate space and funding for my collection. After 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, I hated mine and was relieved to donate it to the university, on the condition it be displayed and preserved as a teaching tool. Having these objects at home was unsettling, especially with young children who referred to the Klan-robed mannequins as “daddy’s dolls” and played with racist target games. One child broke a “Tom” cookie jar, sparking an ironic two-day anger in me.
The museum serves as a teaching laboratory. Ferris State faculty and students use it to understand historical racism. It also includes post-Jim Crow items, demonstrating racism’s continued presence. Scholars and civil rights groups visit. Children are rarely admitted and must be accompanied by adults. We encourage visitors to watch Marlon Riggs’ Ethnic Notions or Jim Crow’s Museum, a documentary I produced with Clayton Rye, before entering. Trained facilitators guide tours.
A racist target game. These games, often featuring caricatured Black figures, normalized violence and dehumanization by making Black people the targets of amusement and aggression.
The Jim Crow Museum’s mission is clear: use items of intolerance to teach tolerance. We examine race relations, racist depictions’ origins and consequences, fostering open dialogues about America’s racial history. We confront race and racism directly, believing silence is more dangerous. I continue to lecture at schools and colleges, advocating for honest discussions about race in curricula to foster tolerance. Schools avoiding these discussions often exhibit 1950s-era racial dynamics – unspoken stereotypes, “racial incidents,” and reliance on “diversity consultants” for damage control. The Jim Crow Museum believes open, honest, even painful conversations about race are crucial to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Our goal is not sensationalism, but to address a widespread naiveté about America’s past. Many Americans view historical racism abstractly, minimizing its severity. Confronting the visual evidence – thousands of racist objects in one room – is often shocking and painful. The late 1800s “Hit the Coon” carnival game, where patrons threw balls at a Black man’s head for prizes, exemplifies this brutality. Seeing a reproduction today provides a visceral glimpse into the Jim Crow era.
This game reinforced the notion of Black people as less than human, alleviating white guilt about Black suffering and legitimizing violence against them. “Hit the Coon” and “African Dodger” evolved into target games with wooden Black heads, symbolizing violence. These games’ popularity coincided with increased lynchings. The Jim Crow Museum has many objects depicting violence against Black people. We lack the carnival banner, but it would be a powerful teaching tool.
Some truths are painful. Anger is a necessary catalyst, but not the destination. My anger peaked reading The Turner Diaries, by William L. Pierce, a white supremacist fantasy of racial war and white rule. It graphically depicts the brutal murder of minorities and their white allies. This influential racist book inspired groups like The Order and Timothy McVeigh. Reading it in one day, exhausted, consumed me.
Pierce, a physics Ph.D. and former Nazi, wrote the book. But why did it affect me so deeply, given my collection and Southern upbringing? The venomous ideas were not new. Yet, the book shook me.
A postcard depicting Black children as “alligator bait.” This horrific imagery, common in the Jim Crow era, explicitly dehumanized Black children and portrayed them as disposable and prey to danger, reflecting the era’s brutal racism.
Around that time, I brought a colleague’s students to the Jim Crow Museum. I showed them the Mammy, Sambo, Brute caricatures – the full ugliness. We went deeper than intended, my anger palpable. After three hours, only two students remained: a young Black woman and a middle-aged white man. The woman sat transfixed, staring at an “Alligator Bait” picture of naked Black children, silently asking, “Why, sweet Jesus, why?” The white man, tears streaming, turned to me and said, “I am sorry, Mr. Pilgrim. Please forgive me.”
He hadn’t created the objects, but he had benefited from a society that oppressed Black people. Racial healing requires contrition. His apology, heartfelt and transformative, defused my anger. The Jim Crow Museum isn’t about shock or shame, but deeper understanding. Some visitors perceive me as detached, but I’ve worked to channel my anger into productive work.
Most visitors understand and support our mission, continuing the journey towards improved race relations. But we face criticism. The 21st century often avoids deep, systematic examinations of racism, prioritizing comfort over confrontation. Many Americans want to forget the past and “move forward,” believing silence will eradicate racism. But silence isn’t forgetting. America remains racially segregated. Churches, schools, and neighborhoods are often divided. Overt racism has evolved into institutional, symbolic, and everyday racism. Race still matters. “Let’s stop talking about it” is a plea for comfort denied to minorities. Progress requires confronting historical and contemporary racism in a setting that critiques attitudes and behaviors.
Some ask, “Why no positive items?” We are, in effect, a Black holocaust museum. While not equating sufferings, the scale of African and African American suffering – the Middle Passage, slavery, lynchings, racial violence – is immense.
A poster promoting a civil rights march. This image represents the planned expansion of the Jim Crow Museum to include positive stories of Black achievement and the Civil Rights Movement, offering a more complete narrative.
In a larger facility, we will add “positive stories”: Black achievements despite Jim Crow, a “Civil Rights Movement” section highlighting known and unsung heroes, and a “reflection room” with a mural of civil rights martyrs prompting visitors to ask, “What can I do today?” We’ll also include poster-sized images of “regular” Black people alongside caricatures, reminding visitors of the distortions inherent in racist imagery. Kiosks will feature stories from Jim Crow survivors.
Jim Crow was weakened in the 50s and 60s. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) challenged school segregation. Civil Rights Movement protests against police brutality and voter suppression forced broader societal awareness. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed after Kennedy’s death, was a major blow.
A collection of books by Black authors. The expanded museum will highlight the intellectual and creative contributions of Black individuals, showcasing their resilience and achievements in the face of systemic racism.
Segregation laws fell in the 60s and 70s. Black politicians were elected in former segregationist strongholds. Southern universities integrated, albeit often symbolically. Affirmative action emerged. Black people gained non-stereotypical media representation. While racial problems persisted, Jim Crow seemed to be dying. Many white people discarded racist household items.
But Jim Crow attitudes resurfaced. The late 20th century saw backlash against Black “gains.” Affirmative Action was attacked. The Coon caricature reappeared as the “welfare queen.” Fear of Black men as brutes morphed into portrayals of Black people as thugs and gangsters.
Mammy stereotypes gave way to Jezebel images of hypersexual Black women. “Racial sensitivity” became “political correctness.”
Today’s racial climate is ambivalent. Polls show declining prejudice, yet ideas critical of minorities gain traction. Many white Americans are “tired” of race discussions, believing enough “concessions” have been made. Some resist “government intrusion” on integration, while others fight “political correctness.” A segment still believes in Black inferiority. Martin Luther King Jr., once vilified, is now a hero, yet Black people as a whole face suspicion.
Halloween masks exaggerating Black features. The continued production and sale of overtly racist items, like these masks, demonstrate that racist caricatures persist in contemporary culture and are not merely artifacts of the past.
In the early 90s, New Orleans stores had few racist objects. Ten years later, they were abundant – and readily available online, including on eBay. Old items are reproduced, new ones created. Halloween USA produces monstrous, caricatured Black masks.
The board game Ghettopoly. This modern game, with its offensive stereotypes and themes, illustrates the persistence of racist caricatures in contemporary products marketed as satire, raising questions about the impact of such representations.
In 2003, David Chang’s Ghettopoly game sparked national outrage. Debasing minorities, particularly Black people, it features game pieces like “Pimp” and “Hoe,” “crack houses” instead of hotels, and cards like “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack.” Hasbro sued, but Chang defends it as satire. AdultDolls.net sells “Trash Talker Dolls,” including “Pimp Daddy.” Charles Knipp’s minstrel-drag act “Shirley Q. Liquor” is popular in the South, despite protests elsewhere. These modern depictions echo century-old caricatures. The satire fails, but profits persist.
Understanding is key. The Jim Crow Museum compels visitors to confront their own stances on equality. It sparks honest dialogues about race and racism, leaving no topic off-limits. We analyze racist imagery’s origins and consequences, and more.
I am humbled by the Jim Crow Museum’s national and international reach. Ferris State’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 served as directors. It is a team effort.
My role is evolving. I have other “garbage” to collect – hundreds of sexist objects, destined for “The Sarah Baartman Room,” a parallel museum addressing sexism, named for a 19th-century African woman exploited in Europe, embodying 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” and “Them,” traveling exhibits teaching about Jim Crow and other forms of intolerance. Our goal: use items of intolerance to teach tolerance.
Finally, a personal story: Watching my daughter’s soccer practice, I saw white teenage boys mocking “street blacks” in blackface masks. My daughter hid her face in shame. If you are a parent, you understand my feeling. 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.
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.
