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 Kennedy1
I am, in a sense, a digital garbage collector, sifting through racist debris. For decades, I’ve been gathering items that demean and diminish Black people and their American heritage. Imagine stumbling upon a “party game” from the 1930s, something like “72 Pictured Party Stunts.” One card within this game directs players to mimic “a colored boy eating watermelon.” The accompanying image? A grotesquely rendered Black child, eyes bulging, lips cartoonishly red, devouring a watermelon almost as big as himself. This imagery is deeply offensive, yet I, like many others who recognize the insidious nature of prejudice, have collected this and thousands of similar artifacts that portray Black individuals through dehumanizing racial caricatures – Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and more. Why gather such offensive material? Because I firmly believe, and empirical evidence supports, that items embodying intolerance can be powerful tools for teaching tolerance. In today’s digital age, we see echoes of these historical caricatures in online memes, often cheaply and easily disseminated, that perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Comparing these fleeting digital images to the enduring physical objects of the past reveals a disturbing continuity in racist representation, even if the platforms of delivery have changed.
In a way, my journey into confronting racist imagery started with a purchase that, in retrospect, feels almost symbolic of the cheapness and disposability sometimes associated with online culture, including the memes that proliferate within it. I acquired my first racist object as a young teenager, around 12 or 13. The memory isn’t crystal clear, but it was the early 1970s in Mobile, Alabama, my childhood home. The item was small, likely a Mammy saltshaker. It must have been inexpensive because I never had much money then. And it must have been deeply unsettling because after paying the antique dealer, I impulsively smashed it on the ground, shattering it into pieces. It wasn’t a political statement, not consciously. I simply loathed it, if one can truly hate an inanimate object. I don’t recall if the dealer reprimanded me, but he probably did. I was, in the vernacular of Mobile, both among Black and White communities, impolitely known as a “Red Nigger,” due to my complexion and perhaps my temperament. In that era, in that place, he could have hurled that epithet at me without consequence. I don’t remember what he called me, but I’m sure it wasn’t David Pilgrim.
Consider a magazine advertisement from 1916. It depicts a young Black boy, subtly caricatured, drinking from an ink bottle. The caption underneath reads, chillingly, “Nigger Milk.” I purchased this print in 1988 from an antique shop in LaPorte, Indiana. It was framed and priced at $20. The salesclerk labeled the receipt simply, “Black Print.” I corrected her, insisting she write, “Nigger Milk Print.”
“If you intend to sell it,” I asserted, “call it by its true name.” She refused. We argued briefly. I bought the print and left. That was my final argument with a dealer or sales clerk. Now, I simply buy the items and depart with minimal interaction. This interaction highlights a key point relevant to our keyword: the act of naming and confronting racist imagery, whether in historical artifacts or contemporary memes, is crucial. Just as the salesclerk tried to sanitize the print’s title, there’s a tendency to downplay or dismiss racist content online as “just a meme,” minimizing its harmful impact.
The Mammy saltshaker and the “Nigger Milk” print, while disturbing, are not the most offensive items I’ve encountered. In 1874, McLoughlin Brothers of New York produced a puzzle game titled “Chopped Up N*ggers.” Today, this game is a highly sought-after collectible. I’ve seen it for sale twice, but each time lacked the $3,000 asking price. Postcards from the early 20th century depict horrific scenes: Black people being whipped, hanging from trees, or lying burned beyond recognition. These lynching postcards and photographs sell for around $400 each on platforms like eBay. I could afford one, but I’m not yet ready to possess such a visceral embodiment of racial terror. This market for racist memorabilia, both historical and contemporary, echoes the way harmful memes can be cheaply produced and widely circulated online, sometimes even commodified or monetized, further highlighting the need for critical comparison.
Friends sometimes suggest I’m obsessed with racist objects. If they’re right, this fixation began during my undergraduate years at Jarvis Christian College, a small historically Black institution in Hawkins, Texas. My professors taught more than academic subjects; they imparted the lived reality of being Black under Jim Crow segregation. Imagine being a college professor forced to wear a chauffeur’s hat while driving your own new car through small towns, to avoid being assaulted by a white person for appearing “uppity.” These weren’t tales of rage; they were matter-of-fact accounts of daily life in a society where every Black person was deemed inferior to every White person, where “social equality” was a dangerous concept, fighting words. Black people knew their clothing sizes because they were barred from trying clothes on in department stores. Shared clothing, even briefly, between Black and White individuals implied social equality, perhaps even intimacy – anathema to the Jim Crow South.
I was ten when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We watched his funeral on a small black and white TV in my fifth-grade classroom at Bessie C. Fonville Elementary. My classmates were all Black; Mobile was proudly, defiantly segregated. Two years later, seeking cheaper housing, my family moved to Prichard, Alabama, an even more segregated city. Just a decade prior, Black people were forbidden from using the Prichard City Library without a note from a white person. White people owned most businesses and held all elected offices. I was among the first Black students to integrate Prichard Middle School. A local TV commentator called it an “invasion.” Invaders? We were children. We faced hostility from white adults en route to school and from white children within its walls. By the time I graduated from Mattie T. Blount High School, most white families had left Prichard. Arriving at Jarvis Christian College, I was far from naive about Southern race relations.
My college professors taught the standard curriculum – Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois. More importantly, they illuminated the everyday heroism of maids, butlers, and sharecroppers who risked their livelihoods, even their lives, to resist Jim Crow. I learned to analyze history critically, from the “bottom-up,” not as a linear narrative of “great men,” but from the perspective of the oppressed. I recognized my profound debt to countless Black individuals – mostly forgotten by history – who endured immense suffering so that I could have an education. At Jarvis Christian College, I grasped that a scholar could, indeed must, be an activist. It was there that the seed of the Jim Crow Museum was planted. I wasn’t yet sure what form it would take, but the idea of collecting racist objects as a tool for education began to germinate. This idea stands in stark contrast to the often fleeting and seemingly inconsequential nature of online memes, many of which are created and shared cheaply, yet can still carry significant and harmful ideological weight.
While all racial groups have been caricatured in America, none have faced such persistent and multifaceted caricature as Black Americans. Popular culture has depicted Black people as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and threats to society. These anti-Black representations routinely appeared on everyday objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and countless other items. These objects, imbued with racist imagery, both reflected and shaped societal attitudes toward African Americans. As Robbin Henderson (Faulkner, Henderson, Fabry, & Miller, 1982), director of the Berkeley Art Center, aptly stated, “derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism” (p. 11). She was right. Racist imagery is propaganda, and this propaganda was instrumental in upholding Jim Crow laws and customs. This understanding is crucial when we consider the pervasiveness of racist memes online. Like these historical objects, memes can disseminate harmful stereotypes quickly and cheaply, shaping attitudes and contributing to a culture that normalizes prejudice.
Jim Crow was far more than just “Whites Only” signs. It was a comprehensive way of life, a racial caste system in practice (Woodward, 1974). Jim Crow laws and social etiquette were bolstered by millions of everyday objects that portrayed Black people as ludicrous, contemptible inferiors. The Coon caricature, for example, depicted Black men as lazy, easily frightened, perpetually idle, inarticulate, physically grotesque idiots. This distorted image permeated postcards, sheet music, children’s games, and countless other objects. The Coon and other stereotypical depictions of Black people reinforced the notion that they were unfit for integrated schools, safe neighborhoods, responsible jobs, voting rights, and public office. I can still hear the voices of my Black elders – parents, neighbors, teachers – urgently pleading, “Don’t be a Coon, be a man.” Living under Jim Crow meant constantly battling against this imposed shame. This historical context is vital when analyzing the impact of racist memes. While memes may seem less tangible than physical objects, they operate on the same principle: to cheapen and demean a group of people, reinforcing harmful stereotypes that can have real-world consequences.
During my four years as a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I continued collecting racist objects. Most were small and inexpensive. I paid $2 for a postcard showing a terrified Black man being devoured by an alligator. I spent $5 for a matchbox featuring a Sambo-like character with exaggerated genitalia. The collection I amassed wasn’t representative of everything available in Ohio, or anywhere else; it was limited by my meager budget. Extremely 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 N*gger.” I couldn’t afford the $125 price tag. This was the early 1980s, before prices for racist collectibles skyrocketed. Today, that print, if authentic, would fetch thousands of dollars. During vacations, I scoured flea markets and antique shops from Ohio to Alabama, seeking items that denigrated Black people. This pursuit, driven by a desire to understand and combat racism, stands in contrast to the often casual and even humorous creation and consumption of racist memes online, which can ironically cheapen the very real historical and ongoing harm of racist ideologies.
My time at Ohio State was, I now realize, filled with considerable anger. Perhaps anger is an unavoidable emotion for any aware Black person, at least for a time. I was in the Sociology Department, a politically liberal environment, where discussions about improving race relations were common. There were only a handful of Black students, and we gravitated together, feeling like outsiders. I won’t speak for my Black colleagues, but I was deeply skeptical of my white professors’ grasp of everyday racism. Their lectures were often insightful, yet incomplete. Race relations were a topic for theoretical debate; Black people were a “research category.” Real Black people, with real aspirations and struggles, were seen as problematic. I was wary of my white teachers, and that suspicion was mutual.
A friend suggested I take some “elective courses” in the Black Studies Program. I did. James Upton, a Political Scientist, introduced me to Paul Robeson’s book Here I Stand (1958). Robeson, an accomplished athlete and entertainer, was also an activist who believed American capitalism was detrimental to poor people, particularly Black Americans. He maintained his convictions despite ostracism and persecution. While I wasn’t anti-capitalist, I admired his commitment to his beliefs and his unwavering fight for the rights of the oppressed. I read many books on race and race relations, but few impacted me as profoundly as Here I Stand. I also read James Baldwin’s novels and essays. His anger resonated with me, though I was troubled by his homosexuality. This is hardly surprising, given my upbringing in a demonstrably homophobic community. Homosexuality was seen as weakness, and “sissies” were considered “bad luck.” Prejudice isn’t exclusive to white bigots. Progress is a journey. I had a long way to go. This journey of understanding and confronting prejudice, both internal and external, is crucial in the digital age, where harmful memes can easily reinforce existing biases and cheaply propagate new ones.
I’ve long felt that Americans, particularly white Americans, prefer discussing slavery to Jim Crow. All formerly enslaved people are deceased. They are not present, their existence a constant reminder of that unspeakably cruel system. Their children, too, are gone. Separated by a century and a half, many modern Americans view slavery as a regrettable period when Black people worked without pay. But enslavement was infinitely worse. It was the complete domination of one group of people by another, with all the abuses that accompany unchecked power. Slave owners whipped enslaved people who displeased them. Clergy preached that slavery was God’s will. Scientists “proved” Black people were less evolved, a subspecies of humanity, and politicians concurred. Teachers taught children that Black people were inherently less intelligent. Laws forbade enslaved people, and sometimes even 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 enough “psychological distance” for many Americans to grapple with slavery, and when that’s insufficient, a sanitized version is readily embraced.
The horrors of Jim Crow are harder to ignore. The children of Jim Crow are still alive, and they have stories to tell. 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 were familiar with terrorism. On Sunday, September 15, 1963, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed. Twenty-three people were injured, and four young girls were killed. Black people who grew up during Jim Crow can recount this bombing – and many others. Black people who dared to protest Jim Crow’s injustices faced threats, and when threats failed, violence, including bombings. The children of Jim Crow can tell you about the Scottsboro Boys, the Tuskegee Experiment, lynchings, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and they have countless stories of the daily indignities inflicted upon Black people in towns where they were neither respected nor wanted. This historical weight is often absent in the seemingly lighthearted and cheaply produced racist memes that circulate online. Yet, these memes draw power from the same wellspring of historical dehumanization and prejudice.
Yes, many would rather talk about slavery than Jim Crow because discussing Jim Crow inevitably raises the question: “What about today?” This question is particularly relevant when we consider the digital landscape. Racist memes, often dismissed as harmless jokes, are a contemporary manifestation of the same underlying prejudices that fueled Jim Crow. They are a cheap and easily disseminated form of propaganda, subtly reinforcing harmful stereotypes and contributing to a climate of racial intolerance.
In 1990, I joined the sociology faculty at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was my second teaching position and third “real” job. By then, my collection of racist artifacts exceeded 1,000 items. I kept the collection at home, bringing pieces out when giving public talks, primarily to high school students. I discovered that many young people, both Black and white, were not only ignorant about historical expressions of racism, but doubted my accounts of Jim Crow’s brutality. Their ignorance troubled me. 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 – chasing fried chicken and watermelons while fleeing alligators. I explained the connection between Jim Crow laws and racist material objects. Perhaps I was too forceful, too driven to make them understand. I was learning to use these objects as teaching tools while simultaneously processing my own anger. This direct, physical confrontation with racist artifacts is in stark contrast to the often detached and ironic consumption of racist memes online. Yet, both serve to transmit and perpetuate harmful stereotypes, albeit through different mediums.
A pivotal moment occurred in 1991. A colleague told me about an elderly Black woman with a vast collection of Black-related objects. I’ll call her Mrs. Haley. She was an antique dealer in a small Indiana town. I visited her and described my collection. She seemed unimpressed. I explained how I used racist objects to educate students about racism. Still, no visible reaction. Her store displayed a few pieces of racist memorabilia. I asked if she kept most of the “Black material” at home. She said she kept those items in the back, but I could only see them if I agreed to a condition: I could never “pester” her to sell me any of them. I agreed. She locked the front door, placed the “closed” sign in the window, and gestured for me to follow her.
If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the feeling that washed over me when I saw her collection: a profound, chilling sadness. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of objects lined shelves reaching to the ceiling. All four walls were covered with some of the most virulently racist objects imaginable. Some I owned, others I’d seen in Black Memorabilia price guides, and still others were so rare I haven’t encountered them since. I was stunned. Sadness. It felt as if the objects themselves were crying out, wailing. Every conceivable distortion of Black people, our people, was on display. It was a chamber of horrors. She remained silent, watching me as I stared at the objects. One was a life-sized wooden figure of a Black man, grotesquely caricatured. It was a testament to the twisted creativity often fueling racism. Her walls held a tangible record of the immense pain and harm inflicted upon Africans and their descendants. I felt an urge to weep. It was in that moment that I resolved to create a museum. This powerful, visceral experience of confronting a vast collection of racist artifacts stands in stark contrast to the often fleeting and seemingly disposable nature of racist memes online. However, both forms of media contribute to the ongoing legacy of racist representation, albeit through different channels and with different levels of perceived seriousness.
I became a regular visitor to Mrs. Haley’s store. She liked me because I was “from down home.” She told me that in the 1960s and 70s, many white people gave her racist objects. They no longer wanted to be associated with racism. They felt embarrassed. This sentiment shifted in the mid-1980s. Several price guides dedicated solely to racist collectibles were published. These guides fueled the contemporary market for racist collectibles. Each new guide showed escalating prices, igniting a nationwide hunt for racist items. Mrs. Haley’s collection was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she had no intention of selling. These objects were 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. She passed away, and I heard her collection was sold to private dealers. This saddened me deeply on multiple levels. It pained me that she didn’t live to see the museum she inspired. This commodification of racist artifacts, driven by market forces and price guides, mirrors the way racist memes can be cheaply produced, widely circulated, and even monetized online, sometimes with little regard for their harmful impact.
I continued collecting racist objects: musical records with racist themes, fishing lures with Sambo imagery, children’s games depicting naked, dirty Black children – any and every racist item I could afford. In colder months, I frequented antique stores; in warmer months, flea markets. I was impatient, eager to purchase entire collections from dealers and collectors. Again, limited funds restricted me to smaller acquisitions.
In 1994, I joined a three-person team from Ferris State University attending a two-week workshop at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. The Lilly Foundation sponsored conference focused on the liberal arts. Our team’s task was to integrate “diversity” into Ferris State’s general education curriculum. My colleague, Mary Murnik, and I visited all the local antique stores. Colorado Springs, a politically conservative city, unsurprisingly had many racist items for sale – some vintage, many reproductions. I bought several segregation signs, a Coon Chicken Inn glass, three racist ashtrays, and numerous other items. I also purchased several 1920s records with racist themes from a dealer who felt compelled to share his views on “the problem with colored people.” I wanted the records, not the conversation. John Thorp, the third team member, and I spent hours strategizing how to persuade Ferris State University administration to allocate physical space and funding for a room to house my racist collectibles. It took several years, but John and I ultimately succeeded. This institutional effort to create a space for confronting racist imagery stands in contrast to the often decentralized and unregulated nature of online meme culture, where harmful content can spread rapidly and cheaply with little accountability.
Today, I am the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery at Ferris State University. Most collectors find solace in their collections; I always hated mine and felt relieved to remove it from 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. I had young children. They would wander into the basement and see “daddy’s dolls” – two mannequins in full Ku Klux Klan regalia. They played with racist target games. One of them, I’m not sure which, broke a “Tom” cookie jar. I was angry for two days. The irony is not lost on me.
The museum serves as a teaching laboratory. Ferris State faculty and students use it to understand historical expressions of racism. The museum also includes items created after the Jim Crow era, crucial because many students dismissed racism as “a thing of the past.” Scholars, primarily social scientists, also visit. Children are rarely allowed in the exhibit room, 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 and I produced, before entering. A trained museum facilitator guides all tours. Clergy, civil rights groups, and human rights organizations also visit. This structured, educational approach to confronting racist imagery contrasts sharply with the often chaotic and decontextualized spread of racist memes online, highlighting the importance of critical analysis and historical understanding in combating prejudice.
The Jim Crow Museum’s mission is straightforward: to use items of intolerance to teach tolerance. We examine historical patterns of race relations and the origins and consequences of racist depictions. The goal is to engage visitors in open, honest dialogues about America’s racial history. We are not afraid to discuss race and racism; we are afraid not to. I continue to give public presentations at high schools and colleges. Race relations suffer when discussions of race and racism are taboo. High schools that genuinely integrate race, racism, and diversity into their curricula foster greater tolerance. It’s easy to identify schools that are afraid or unwilling to honestly examine race and racism. There, you’ll find a 1950s-like pattern of everyday race relations. Racial stereotypes will be prevalent, though perhaps unspoken. Inevitably, a “racial incident” will occur – a racial slur, a fight blamed on “the other” – and no foundation will exist for addressing it, beyond hiring me or a similar “diversity consultant” to restore order. The Jim Crow Museum is founded on the belief that open, honest, even painful discussions about race are essential to avoid repeating past mistakes. This emphasis on open dialogue and critical examination is particularly relevant in the context of online memes, which often circulate rapidly and cheaply, bypassing thoughtful discussion and critical analysis.
Our aim is not to shock visitors, but a pervasive naiveté about America’s past permeates this country. Many Americans understand historical racism primarily as a vague abstraction: racism existed; it was bad, though probably not as bad as Black people and other minorities claim. Confronting the visual evidence of racism – especially thousands of items in a small room – is often shocking, even painful. In the late 1800s, traveling carnivals and amusement parks sometimes featured a game called “Hit the Coon.” A Black man would stick his head through a hole in a painted canvas depicting a plantation scene. White patrons would throw balls – and in particularly brutal instances, rocks – at the Black man’s head to win prizes. A person in the 21st century who sees that banner or a reproduction gains a glimpse into the reality of being Black in the early Jim Crow era. This visceral shock, while uncomfortable, is a crucial step in understanding the historical roots of racism, a depth often lacking in the quick consumption and sharing of racist memes online.
That carnival banner reinforced the idea that Black people were not as human as white people. It eased white guilt about Black suffering, suggesting Black people didn’t experience pain like “normal” people – whites. It legitimized “happy violence” against Black people. It boosted the egos of white participants. How many poorly paid, marginalized white individuals vented their frustration at the expense of “Black heads?” The “Hit the Coon” game and its variant, “African Dodger,” were eventually replaced with target games using wooden Black heads. One doesn’t need to be a psychologist to grasp the symbolic violence. Games targeting Black people were popular during a period of escalating lynchings. The Jim Crow Museum holds many objects showing Black people being thrown at, hit, or beaten. We lack the carnival banner – but it could teach volumes. This direct link between racist imagery and real-world violence is crucial to understand when analyzing the potential harm of even seemingly innocuous racist memes, especially those cheaply and rapidly disseminated online.
Some truths are painful.
Anger is a necessary catalyst on many journeys, but it cannot be the destination. My anger peaked when I read The Turner Diaries (1978), by William L. Pierce, writing as Andrew MacDonald.2 The book chronicles the “heroism” of white supremacists who overthrow the federal government, win a bloody race war, and establish a white-ruled society. Black people, other minorities, and white allies are brutally, graphically murdered. Arguably the most racist book of the late 20th century, it has influenced numerous racist organizations, including The Order and The Aryan Republican Army. Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was a fan – and his bombing eerily mirrored events in The Turner Diaries. I made the mistake of reading all 80,000 words in a single day, while exhausted. It consumed me.
Pierce, a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado, aligned himself with Nazis in the 1960s. This explains his writing, but why did it anger me so deeply? I had, after all, a basement full of racist memorabilia. I grew up in the segregated South. I remember race riots on Davis Avenue in Mobile. I was familiar with countless ways to be called a n*gger and threatened with violence. Pierce’s ideas, though venomous, weren’t new to me. Yet, the book shook me.
Around that time, I took a colleague’s students to the Jim Crow Museum. I showed them the ugliness – the Mammy, the Sambo, the Brute, the caricatured sores inflicted on Black Americans. I showed them everything. We went deeper than ever before, deeper than I intended. My anger was palpable. After three hours, everyone left except two – a young Black woman and a middle-aged white man. The woman sat, paralyzed, transfixed, and stunned before a picture of four naked Black children seated on a riverbank. Below, the words: “Alligator Bait.” She sat there, staring, trying to fathom the hand that created it, the mind that conceived it. She was silent, but her eyes, her frown, her hand on her forehead all asked, “Why, sweet Jesus, why?” The white man stopped looking at the objects and looked at me, tears streaming down his face. Not sobbing, just silent tears. His tears moved me. I approached him. 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 living in a society that oppressed Black people. Racial healing requires sincere contrition. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear a white person, any sincere white person, say, “I am sorry, forgive me.” I wanted and needed an apology – a heartfelt one that changes lives. His words defused my anger. The Jim Crow Museum isn’t meant to shock, shame, or anger, but to foster deeper understanding of the historical racial divide. Some visitors say I seem detached; I’m not. I’ve struggled to channel my anger into productive work. This experience underscores the profound emotional impact of confronting racist imagery, whether in historical artifacts or contemporary memes. While memes may seem cheap and disposable, their cumulative effect can be deeply harmful, requiring a similar process of acknowledgement, contrition, and healing.
Most Jim Crow Museum visitors understand our mission, accept our methods, and join the journey toward understanding and improving race relations. But we have critics, as expected. The 21st century has brought a fear of deeply and systematically examining racism. The hedonistic desire to avoid pain (or discomfort) contradicts our method of directly confronting racism’s ugly legacy. Furthermore, many Americans increasingly want to forget the past and move forward. “If we just stop talking about historical racism, racism will disappear.” It’s not that simple. We may avoid discussing race openly, but that doesn’t erase it. America remains residentially segregated by race. Our churches, temples, and synagogues are largely racially divided. Old patterns of segregation are returning to many public schools. Race matters. Racial stereotypes, sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, are pervasive. Overt racism has evolved into institutional racism, symbolic racism, and everyday racial microaggressions. Racial attitudes and beliefs inform countless decisions, large and small. “Let’s stop talking about it” is a plea for comfort – a comfort denied to Black people and other minorities. The path forward requires confronting both historical and contemporary expressions of racism in a setting that critiques attitudes, values, and behaviors. This is especially true in the digital sphere, where racist memes can proliferate cheaply and rapidly, reinforcing harmful stereotypes and hindering meaningful dialogue.
Several museum visitors have asked, “Why don’t you include positive items?” My answer is simple: we are, in effect, a Black Holocaust museum. I intend no disrespect to the millions of Jews and others who perished under Adolf Hitler and his regime. I hesitate to use “holocaust” to describe the experiences of Africans and their descendants, not wanting to trivialize Jewish suffering, nor to compare victimizations. But what word should I use? Thousands of Africans died during the transatlantic slave trade. Countless more endured brutal slavery, and even after emancipation, thousands of Black people were lynched – often ritualistically, by white mobs. Many “white towns” exist today because Black people were “driven out” by racial violence. This historical trauma, often cheapened or dismissed in online discourse, demands serious and unflinching confrontation, much like the Jim Crow Museum provides for physical artifacts.
When the Jim Crow Museum expands to a larger facility, three additional “stories” will be told. Artifacts and signage will showcase the remarkable achievements of Black scholars, scientists, artists, and inventors who thrived despite Jim Crow. A “Civil Rights Movement” section will be added, featuring images of protestors with signs reading, “I, Too, Am A Man.” Visitors will learn about civil rights activists, many overlooked in history books. This section will represent the “Death of Jim Crow,” though its vestiges persist. Finally, a reflection room is planned. I envision a mural of civil rights martyrs, of all races, surrounding visitors as they contemplate the vital question: “What can I do today to combat racism?” These will be positive additions. We also plan to enlarge photographs of Black people simply being “regular” people: eating, walking, studying, living. These poster-sized images will be placed near the caricatured objects, reminding visitors that the thousands of denigrating objects are distortions, malicious exaggerations – not reality. Kiosks will feature stories from people who lived under Jim Crow. These positive additions aim to provide a more complete picture, moving beyond solely the negative imagery to showcase resilience and resistance, a dimension often lacking in the cheap and fleeting nature of online meme culture.
Jim Crow was wounded in the 1950s and 60s. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) declared segregated schools unconstitutional, accelerating the end of legal segregation, though not its complete eradication, as evidenced by the ongoing need for the Civil Rights Movement. White people, particularly in the North, witnessed images of Black protestors being beaten by police, attacked by dogs, arrested for seeking to vote, eat at segregated lunch counters, and attend “white” schools. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed after President Kennedy’s assassination, dealt a significant blow to Jim Crow.
One by one, segregation laws were dismantled in the 1960s and 70s. Eliminating voting barriers led to the election of Black politicians in numerous cities, including former segregationist strongholds like Birmingham and Atlanta. Southern white colleges and universities began admitting Black students and hiring Black professors, albeit often token numbers. Affirmative action programs compelled public and private employers to hire Black people and other minorities. Black people began appearing on television in non-stereotypical roles. Significant racial problems persisted, but Jim Crow-era attitudes and behaviors seemed destined to fade. Many white people discarded household items that denigrated Black people – ashtrays with smiling Sambos, “Jolly Ngger” banks, sheet music like “Coon, Coon, Coon,” and children’s books like Little Black Sambo*. This historical shift towards dismantling Jim Crow, though incomplete, stands in contrast to the ease with which racist memes can be cheaply created and disseminated online, often perpetuating the same harmful stereotypes that these discarded objects once embodied.
Yet, Jim Crow attitudes did not disappear; in many ways, they’ve resurfaced. The late 20th century saw many white people resentful of Black “gains.” Affirmative Action was attacked as reverse discrimination against white people. The Coon caricature of lazy, shiftless Black people resurfaced in depictions of welfare recipients. White Americans support welfare for the “deserving poor,” but strongly oppose it for those deemed lazy and unwilling to work. Black welfare recipients are often seen as indolent parasites. The centuries-old fear of Black people, particularly young Black men, as brutes found new life in contemporary portrayals of Black people as thugs, gangsters, and menaces to society. This resurgence of old stereotypes, often cheaply amplified through online memes and social media, demonstrates the enduring power of racist imagery, even in new digital forms.
Black entertainers who financially exploit white America’s appetite for anti-Black stereotypes perpetuate these images. In popular culture, the Mammy caricature of Black women was replaced by the Jezebel: Black women as hypersexual deviants. The racial sensitivity promoted in the 1970s and 80s was, by the century’s end, derided as “political correctness.” This backlash against racial progress, coupled with the cheap and rapid spread of racist memes online, creates a challenging contemporary landscape for combating prejudice.
The new racial climate is ambivalent and contradictory. Polls show a decline in prejudice among white people. There’s a heightened sense that racism is wrong and tolerating “racial others” is good. However, there’s also growing acceptance of ideas critical of and belittling toward Black people and other minorities. Many white people are tired of discussing race, believing America has made sufficient “concessions” to Black citizens. Some rebel against government intervention, arguing the government, especially the federal government, has no right to mandate integration. Others wage personal battles against political correctness. And a segment of the white population still believes Black people are less intelligent, less ambitious, less moral, and more prone to social pathologies: drug abuse, sexual deviance, and crime. Martin Luther King, Jr., vilified in his lifetime, is now hailed as a hero; yet Black people as a whole are viewed with suspicion, sometimes alarm. This complex and contradictory racial climate is further complicated by the cheap and widespread dissemination of racist memes online, which can subtly and overtly reinforce harmful stereotypes and undermine efforts towards racial equality.
In the early 1990s, I attended an academic conference in New Orleans. I searched local stores for racist objects. Few were to be found. Ten years later, I returned. Anti-Black objects were prevalent in many stores. Disappointing, but not surprising. Extremely racist items are readily available through online auction sites, especially eBay. Virtually every object in the Jim Crow Museum is sold on some website. Old racist items are being reproduced, and new ones created. Each year, Halloween USA produces monster masks exaggerating African and African American features. This ongoing production and circulation of racist imagery, both historical and contemporary, highlights the persistent demand for and cheap accessibility of such content, mirroring the ease and low cost of creating and sharing racist memes online.
In 2003, David Chang sparked national outrage with his game, Ghettopoly. Unlike Monopoly, Ghettopoly debases and belittles racial minorities, especially Black people. Ghettopoly’s game pieces include: Pimp, Hoe, 40 oz, Machine Gun, Marijuana Leaf, Basketball, and Crack. One game card reads: “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50 from each playa.” Monopoly has houses and hotels; Ghettopoly has crack houses and projects. Distributors advertise Ghettopoly: “Buying stolen properties, pimpin hoes, building crack houses and projects, paying protection fees and getting car jacked are some of the elements of the game. Not dope enough? If you don’t have the money that you owe to the loan shark you might just land yourself in da Emergency Room.” The game cards depict physically caricatured Black people. Hasbro, Monopoly’s copyright holder, sued David Chang to stop Ghettopoly’s distribution. This example of a cheaply produced and widely circulated racist game further underscores the parallels with online meme culture, where harmful stereotypes can be easily and inexpensively disseminated, often under the guise of humor or satire.
David Chang defends his product as satirical critique of American racism. He’s not alone. AdultDolls.net distributes Trash Talker Dolls, a set of dolls with stereotypical minority depictions. Their bestseller is Pimp Daddy, a chain-wearing, gaudily dressed Black pimp doll who says, “You better make some money, bitch.” Charles Knipp, a white man, gained notoriety for his minstrel-drag “Ignunce Tour.” Knipp, in ragged women’s clothes and blackface makeup, plays Shirley Q. Liquor – a Coon-like Black woman with 19 children. This self-proclaimed “Queen of Dixie” performs skits portraying all Black people as buffoons, whores, idlers, and criminals. Knipp’s shows are popular in the Deep South, but protested in many northern cities (Boykin, 2002). Shirley Q. Liquor collectibles – tapes, glasses, posters – are popular. When satire fails, it reinforces the satirized. Ghettopoly, Trash Talker Dolls, and Shirley Q. Liquor portray Black people as immoral, wretched, ill-bred, cultural parasites. These modern depictions echo negative caricatures from over a century ago. The satire fails, but the distributors profit. These contemporary examples, like cheaply made racist memes, highlight how easily harmful stereotypes can be repackaged and disseminated in new forms, often under the guise of satire or humor, further underscoring the need for critical comparison and analysis.
Understanding is paramount. The Jim Crow Museum’s collection compels visitors to take a stance on human equality. It works. I’ve witnessed profound, honest discussions about race and racism. No topic is off-limits. What role have Black people played in perpetuating anti-Black caricatures and stereotypes? When is folk art racially offensive? Is racial segregation always racist? We analyze the origins and consequences of racist imagery, but we don’t stop there. This emphasis on critical understanding and open dialogue is essential in the digital age, where racist memes can cheaply and rapidly circulate, often hindering thoughtful discussion and promoting simplistic, stereotypical views.
I’m humbled that the Jim Crow Museum has become a national resource – and its website, an international one. Ted Halm, Ferris State’s webmaster, created the site. Two dozen Ferris State faculty are trained docents, leading tours and facilitating discussions. Traveling exhibits are being developed to extend the museum’s lessons to other universities and colleges. Clayton Rye, a Ferris State professor and filmmaker, and I created a documentary about the museum. John Thorp served as museum director until retirement, succeeded by current director Joseph “Andy” Karafa. The museum is a team effort. A vision without help remains a dream.
I see my role diminishing. I have other goals, other “garbage” to collect. I’ve gathered hundreds of objects that defame and belittle women – items that reflected and shaped negative attitudes toward women. One day, I’ll create a room, modeled after the Jim Crow Museum, using sexist objects to educate Americans about sexism. It will be named “The Sarah Baartman Room,” after a 19th-century African woman brutally exploited by Europeans. Her victimization perfectly illustrates the links between racism, sexism, and imperialism. An African proverb states we die only when forgotten. I intend to ensure Sarah Baartman is never forgotten. This expansion of the museum’s mission to address sexism and other forms of prejudice is crucial in a world where cheap and easily disseminated online content, including memes, can perpetuate various forms of discrimination.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In 2004, Carrie Weis, FSU Art Gallery Director, and I created “Hateful Things,” a traveling exhibit teaching about Jim Crow’s horrors. In 2005, we began “Them,” a traveling exhibit focused on objects defaming non-Black people, including women, Asians, Jews, Mexicans, and poor white people. Again, our goal: use items of intolerance to teach tolerance. This broader mission, encompassing various forms of prejudice, is essential in combating the cheap and widespread dissemination of harmful stereotypes in all forms, including online memes that target diverse groups.
I’ll conclude with a story. One daughter plays on an elite soccer team, practices always running late. One day, waiting in the van with another daughter, I saw several white teenage boys clowning for two girls. One boy wore a blackface mask, mocking “street Black” mannerisms. He turned toward us, and I immediately looked at my daughter. She had lowered her head and covered her face. If you have a child, you understand what I felt. If your skin is dark, you understand why I do what I do. This personal anecdote powerfully illustrates the real-world impact of racist imagery, even in seemingly trivial forms like a cheap mask. It underscores the importance of confronting all forms of prejudice, from historical artifacts to contemporary memes, to create a more just and equitable world for future generations.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Feb., 2005
Edited 2024
1 Kennedy (1990, p. 234). This book, originally published in 1959, is a profound-albeit, often satirical-critique of the racial hierarchy that operated during the Jim Crow period.
2 As founder of the National Alliance, the largest neo-Nazi organization in this country, Pierce used weekly radio addresses, the Internet, white power music ventures, and racist video games to promote his vision of a whites-only homeland and a government free of “non-Aryan influence.” Pierce died on July 23, 2002, his followers have vowed to carry on his work.
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.
