The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia has a collection of over 10,000 objects, primarily created between the 1870s and the 1960s. It also includes contemporary objects. The museum is named after Jim Crow, a song-and-dance caricature of blacks that by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When at the end of the 19th century American legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against blacks, these statutes became known as the Jim Crow laws.
This tour of the Jim Crow Museum with founder and curator, Dr. David Pilgrim, discusses some of the major themes of the Jim Crow Museum. Jim Crow was not just a character or a set of "laws", it was a system that built upon itself to create and sustain a society with a racial hierarchy.
The museum demonstrates shows racist ideas and anti-black images within American culture during the Jim Crow era and contemporary forms of racism. Stories about African American achievements along with artifacts of the Civil Rights Movement, are also found within the museum.
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