Using Racist Memorabilia to Understand Jim Crow

Understanding Jim Crow, published by PM Press, Oakland, introduces readers to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, a collection of more than ten thousand contemptible collectibles that are used to engage visitors in intense and intelligent discussions about race, race relations, and racism. The items in the Jim Crow Museum served to dehumanize blacks and legitimized patterns of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation.

Many Americans are already apprehensive discussing race relations, especially in settings where their ideas are challenged. The museum and this book exist to help overcome our collective trepidation and reluctance to talk about race.

Fully illustrated, and with context provided by the museum’s founder and director David Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow is both a grisly tour through America’s past and an auspicious starting point for racial understanding and healing.

“One of the most important contributions to the study of American history that I have ever experienced.” —Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research

“This was a horrific time in our history, but it needs to be taught and seen and heard. This is very well done, very well done.” —Malaak Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz

David Pilgrim is a professor, orator, and human rights activist. He is best known as the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum—a ten-thousand-piece collection of racist artifacts located at Ferris State University, which uses objects of intolerance to teach about race, race relations, and racism.