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BIG RAPIDS, Mich. — A small public university in a rural central Michigan college town has spent $22 million to open a 26,000-square-foot museum dedicated to “racist imagery.”
Ferris State University’s newly expanded Jim Crow Museum, formerly housed in the university library, was officially opened to the public last week.
The museum is now located at the front of campus to “serve as a visible reminder of the university’s commitment to truth, justice and inclusion,” according to campus leaders.
It features an expanded collection of over 30,000 artifacts, including Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben products and decor, a large collection of “lawn jockeys,” racist items and imagery relating to Barack Obama and his presidential campaigns, “white” and “colored” signs, KKK items, and thousands of other unique artifacts, posters, books, and tchotchkes.
“We have been reminded that progress is never guaranteed,” museum founder David Pilgrim, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion at Ferris State, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“History is never just about the past,” he said. “The injustices of yesterday did not happen on their own.”
The museum is billed by the university as “the only one of its kind in the world,” and aims to “confront painful truths, and to create spaces for honest, healing conversations about race and belonging.”
But the expansion has prompted questions from some watchdogs about why a museum dedicated to racist imagery is located in Big Rapids. Ferris State University, located in Mecosta County, is the fifth poorest county in the state with a population of roughly 42,320.
The museum construction fund of $22 million came from state coffers, the Ferris Foundation, corporate donors, and individual donors ranging in contributions from $5 to $200,000.
Addressing concerns and criticisms, FSU President Bill Pink said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony: “Why not? Why not at Ferris State? … (No matter the pushback we’ve gotten) to having this museum here, it only answers the question of why it should be here.”
Pink and Pilgrim noted the university, established in 1884, has a long-standing history of inclusion dating back to its founder, Woodbridge Ferris, who believed every human, regardless of color, gender, or race, should have the opportunity to learn.
Later, Ferris served as the state of Michigan’s 28th governor and then as a U.S. Senator in 1923 until his death in 1928.
His voice choking up, Pilgrim said “history is shaped by individuals who have courage to become what and who they were called to be.”
“I think less about the judgments of those who are living and more about the judgments of our ancestors who suffered so that we might walk in greater freedom and dignity. I want them to know that we were paying attention,” he said.
With the new venue have come some changes as well. While the former location was often referred to as the “Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery” and “racist memorabilia,” the website now only dubs it the “Jim Crow Museum.”
A large fake tree with a noose hanging from it that was featured in the old location also did not make the cut.
