S i !\. i>!H Ki-\ j } Hj■ :{ >\
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2001
University museum helps professor
teach that racism still exists
by Kelley L. Carter
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Come listen all you galls and boys,
I’m going to sing a little song,
My name is Jim Crow.
Weel about and turn about and dojis so,
Eb’ry time I weel about 1 jump Jim Crow.
- Thomas Rice, “Jim Crow”
BIG RAPIDS, Mich. For the first few
minutes of the two-hour session, the group
of professors walks around the small, in
timate museum. Some stop and stare, their
eyes fixed on some of the more provoca
tive pieces on display.
The showcase is housed in a building
at Ferris State University and is a little
bigger than a classroom.
A portrait of nine naked black babies is
propped on a shelf with the words “Alli
gator Bait” written below.
Two professors stare at the image. One
closes her hand over her mouth.
This is the Jim Crow Museum of Rac
ist Memorabilia, a display of racist mate
rial, where signs that proclaim “No Dogs
Negroes Mexicans” are on display.
This is a part of the United States’ story
that professor David Pilgrim doesn’t want
people to foiget.
This is the place where Pilgrim teaches
that racism is still alive.
Just before Black History Month, Pil
grim, who specializes in U.S. minorities,
walks over to a ceiling-to-floor glass-en
cased display. He pulls out a bright green,
plastic, talking cookie jar in the shape of
an alligator. The object usually baffles visi
tors, so he uses it as an entry point for
discussion.
"When you bring students in here," Pil
grim says to the seven professors, “they
may ask about things like this. Here’s why
this cookie jar, that another colleague
bought for me, is in here.”
Pilgrim opens the alligator’s mouth.
“Hmm, Hmm, dese sho is some tasty
cookies.”
The professors gasp.
Just steps away is a display that shows
the correlation between black babies and
black men once being marketed as food
for alligators and crocodiles.
One licorice candy ad reads, “Little Af
rican: A dainty morsel,” with an open
mouthed alligator approaching a black
baby.
This cookie jar - manufactured this
year - is reminiscent of another item Pil
U. of Washington student puts soul up for sale on eßay
by Billy O’Keefe
February 12. 2001
TMS Campus
Some people might think that sell
ing their soul is a long and compli
cated process which requires lots of
postage. Not Adam Burtle, whose soul
has apparently gone digital.
The 20-year-old University of
Washington student offered his soul
grim has in the museum, a 1930 s adver
tisement for Uncle Remus Syrup. A
white-bearded black man on the label
exclaims "Dis Sho' Am Good!”
It’s racist. Pilgrim says. And that’s why
he has it on display.
Pilgrim, a sociologist, began teaching
sessions for university professors in the
museum this semester. This year Pilgrim,
along with Penis State Web master Ted
Halm, launched the museum’s Internet
site, which is attracting educators from
as far as Norway. He also teaches two
undergraduate courses and spends the rest
of his time surfing the Web for more ma
terial for his museum and writing essays
for the museum's Web site,
www.fems.edu/news/jimcrow.
The Jim Crow pcricxl started when seg
regation laws, rules and customs surfaced
after Reconstruction ended in the 1870 s,
and it existed until the mid-1960s when
the struggle for civil rights hit its peak.
In the 1830 s, though, Thomas Rice, a
white actor, helped popularize the belief
that blacks were lazy, stupid and less than
human. Rice painted his face black with
burnt cork and performed his song “Jim
Crow.” Minstrel shows nourished in the
United States and abroad after that, mock
ing black people by depicting them as
comical, uneducated and irrational. The
shows became wildly popular in the
1850 s, and enthusiasm for the show's ta
pered off in the 1870 s. just as Jim Crow
laws were surfacing.
Those damaging images of black
people carried over into motion pictures
and radio shows. In films, white actors
dressed in blackface, pretending to be
black, and on radio, white men played
black ones on shows like “Amos ‘n’
Andy.”
Pilgrim hits many items that reflect that
time period, and he show s how those im
ages are manifested into today’s popular
culture
Pilgrim, the curator and founder of the
museum, w hich he describes as a teach
ing laboratory, began collecting the pieces
30 years ago. They include depictions of
overweight mammies dressed in planta
tion wear, caricatures of black men eat
ing watermelon and chicken. Little Black
Sambo with bright red lips and clocks
from a restaurant called Qx>n Chicken
Inn. The museum has been on campus
since 1995.
He would buy the items -- mammies
on washing powder boxes; carnival post-
for sale last week on eßay, and stood
to collect $4OO until officials at eßay
canceled the auction.
Instead of receiving a check tor his
merchandise. Burtle received a sus
pension from the online auction house.
Burtle included in his listing a pic
ture of himself sporting an “I’m with
stupid” t-shirt, as well as a disclaimer
about the difficulties of selling one’s
soul.
CALL rr SIART UPJMONEY.
TOYOTA’S ACOLLEGE GRADUATE
FINANCE PLAN INCLUDES $5OO
TO GET YOU GOING!
now there’s a Toyota College Graduate Finance Program
just right, too. Mere sue some of the advantages:
• No Down Payment
• No Payment for 90 days
• Finance up to 72 months
• Get $5OO Cash Back From Toyota ...
So if you’re within 4 months of graduation
or if you graduated within the past 2 years
Ask your Toyota dealer for all the details.
www.gettoyota.com
{tenet Progra
c«nt» thro Toyota FfeuocklSmkw. N<x will Some
ItafwtoM mi oficr expires WOW. See feikr (ot deaib.
Dr. David Pilgrim created and runs this Jim Crow museum at Ferris
State University in Big Rapids, Michigan.
ers and comic books depicting savage
looking black people; and postcards with
lynching scenes at flea markets, and
smash or rip them apart right in front of
the person he bought them from. He was
an 11-year-old living in Alabama at the
time and was angry when he saw these
images commonly on display.
For years Pilgrim, who declines to give
his age, bought and disposed of racist
items.
But as he approached college age, he
realized the historical value and signifi-
cance of the pieces.
He began to collect and save these ma
terials - children’s song lyrics, dolls,
cookie jars and T-shirts - so that when
someone denied that racism existed in the
United States, Pilgrim could present the
evidence.
He studied that evidence as well. Pil
grim received an undergraduate degree in
sixtiology from Jarvis Christian College
in Hawkins, Texas. In 1981 he begat work
on a master’s degree and later went on to
cam a doctorate at Ohio State University,
specializing in the patterns of racism and
the cruelty bestowed upon American mi
norities.
As an academic, he often was invited
to talk to various groups aid would take
individual pieces to the classes or churches
where he lectured.
“It got to the point where I was Itxiking
for specific pieces based on whatever I
was talking about,” he says. “'Hie fact that
I was giving speeches is what motivated
me into doing this. I’d always be a little
“Please realize, 1 make no warran
ties as to the condition of the soul. As
of now, it is near mint condition, with
only minor scratches,” read the dis
claimer. "Due to difficulties involved
with removing my soul, the winning
bidder will either have to settle for a
night of yummy Thai food and cool
indie flicks, or wait until my natural
death.”
The bidding began at five cents, and
® TOYOTA
in U.S.
KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/ Detroit Free Press
nervous because some of these people
were these genteel, middle-class urbane
groups, and then I’d pull out this ugly
thing and use it as a visual aid."
After that, the objects went back to his
basement, where no one else could see
them - where they could disturb no one
else.
It wasn’t until he did a lecture program
for Black History Month 10 years ago at
Ferns State that he started rethinking that.
He was new on campus ;tnd wits asked to
do a program on some of his pieces.
“I brought like 100 pieces ...and I just
remember people being dumbfounded,”
Pilgrim says. “And that was the first time
that I had a lot of pieces in one nx>m. It
wasn’t even like this picture I bought to
day, this here is a nasty picture. It s a post
card that has a black guy stripped to his
waist being beaten with people in the
background laughing at him."
The display caught the attention of uni
versity administrators.
And this year, in January, the museum
was awarded an Eisenhower grant from
the Michigan Department of Education,
which helps promote creative teaching
and learning in humttnities, social sciences
and literature in the state. The grant, which
the museum received with the help of the
Detroit Institute of Arts, will help Pilgrim
train high school teachers and DIA tour
guides to use the Jim Crow' Museum
Teachers from tw'o schools in metro De
troit - Southfield-Lathrup Senior High
School and Bloomfield Hills Middle
Schtxrl - will participate.
for the most part held steady after
Burtle's former girlfriend placed a
$6.66 bid. In the auction’s final hour,
a woman raised the stakes by bidding
$4OO. The woman’s eßay rating was
zero, which means that she had no
previous track record —positive or
negative—with other eßay users.
Burtle said that the sale was largely
a prank, and that he did it because he
was bored.
U. of Georgia settles with
two white students who
were denied enrollment
by Billy O’Keefe
TMS Campus
February 7, 2001
The University ol Georgia
agreed this week to pay $55,000
and settle a lawsuit filed by two
law school applicants whom the
university did not admit. The two
students claimed that the university
rejected them because they are
white.
The university subsequently an
nounced that despite settling the
case outside of court, it has done
nothing wrong and will not alter its
admissions policy in lieu of the
suit, filed in May 2000 by students
Virginia Noble and Robert Homlar.
“This is a good settlement for the
law school,” said law school Dean
David Shipley. “It enables us to
continue our efforts to recruit out
standing students without making
tiny changes in our admissions
policy.”
The university agreed to pay
Noble and Homlar, who applied in
1 999 and have since attended other
schools, respective amounts of
$20,000 and $ 15,000. The amounts
were determined as the difference
between the cost of tuition at Geor-
gia and the price of tuition at
pricier schools the two students
have since attended.
Noble currently attends the
Mercy University School of Law,
while Homlar is enrolled at the
University of South Carolina
University of Pittsburgh
student arrested for
posting child
bv William Lee
I MS Campus Correspondent
February 8, 2001
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (TMS) -
Cambria County's district attorney
recently charged a University of Pitts
burgh student with posting child por
nography on a university server.
Nathaniel Winfield, 20, of
Westermoreland County, was charged
with three felony counts of sexual
abuse of children, Feb. 6, but was
freed on a $ 10,000 bond the next day.
Winfield allegedly posted 800 por
nographic photos on a university
server, including 50 that showed chil
dren as young as four, according to
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, engaging
in sex acts. Winfield’s arrest affidavit
School of Law.
Holmar has also been granted the
right to transfer to the University
of Georgia this fall, pending per
mission from USC.
Noble and Homlar argued that
their academic records were supe
rior to those of students chosen
ahead of them to attend the school.
The university had previously
settled two other reverse discrimi-
nation cases, both involving under
graduate admissions, to the tune of
$178,000 and the acceptance of 12
students previously denied enroll
ment.
A fourth reverse discrimination
case, which the university fought
and lost, is currently on appeal. A
district court ruled against the uni
versity in July, declaring it uncon
stitutional to use race as a factor
in granting admission to students.
University President Michael F.
Adams said that the fourth case is
the university's primary focus, and
that such focus is part of the rea
son it forged a settlement with
Noble and Homlar.
“This is consistent with our pat
tern in settling the other extrane
ous admissions cases in order to
keep our focus on the main, major
case," Adams said. "Everybody
agreed that the law school does not
have to change its current admis
sions process, so this settlement
keeps the status quo while we press
forward with our appeal in the 11th
Circuit.”
pornography
stated that he allowed other students
using the Pitt’s Johnstown campus
server to have access to these pic-
Two unidentified
students found the pictures and re
ported it to school officials, who were
able to trace the photos back to
Winfield’s university computer. It is
not yet known if federal charges will
be filed. Possessing and trafficking
child pornography is a federal of
fense. Winfield also may face other
charges for possessing and traffick
ing on state property.
“I think you have a 20-year-old col
lege student who had no sense of the
federal laws on this sort of thing, not
that that excuses it,” said Kevin
Grady, director of Pitt's public safety
office.
Ifewba
1 'A v i!
Corolla