It shook me! I thought I’d seen everything. It was just objects floor to ceiling in a barnlike structure. After many months, she agreed to let me see her personal collection.

Mother Jones: What made you decide to turn your collection into a museum?ĭavid Pilgrim: When I got to Michigan, someone mentioned that they knew this elderly black woman who was an antiques dealer. It lays out the philosophy behind Pilgrim’s work as a scholar and an activist: that only by acknowledging these artifacts and their persistence in American culture can we honestly confront our not-so-distant past. As the title implies, the book isn’t merely an exercise in shock value. He presents a selection of these appalling objects and images in his new book, Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice. In 1996, Pilgrim transformed his 3,200-item collection into the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Michigan’s Ferris State University, where he teaches sociology.

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