ask yourself the question if you grow up
and growing up you see literally thousands of examples in cartoons in
movies in books and in real life of blacks being the victims of pain and the
victims of aggression and also the perpetuators what seeds does that plant?
What we try to do in the entire museum is to re-emphasize that the pieces in
here are caricatures they are not real people it's a distortion it's a lie. Many people come to the Jim Crow Museum
have little or no knowledge of Jim Crow so we began the experience inside the
museum with a display about Jim Crow the character and then we move into Jim Crow
when it become a synonym for racial segregation. This wall here is a blown-up
version of an 1832 sheet music which was called Jim Crow. You have here the
silhouette form of Thomas Rice one of the early blackface performers in the
u.s. who put black face makeup on got on stage and pretended to be a black
character. He did not create blackface stage performances but what he did do
was to make the Jim Crow persona popular in the United States and across the
world. This section of the museum actually has two of the ways we think of
Jim Crow. One, Jim Crow as a blackface form of entertainment. Minstrel shows
both shaped and reflected attitudes toward african-americans. Imagine if you
were a white American you didn't know a lot of African Americans and the only
depictions or portrayals of African Americans that you saw were from the
minstrel stage. There you would find dressed in blackface
white Americans pretending to be African Americans and then later African
Americans darkening their skins pretending to be even darker African
Americans acting as buffoons and idiots and the like. Those shows became central
to the creation the legitimization the spread of the ideas and beliefs that
African Americans were inferior others. "and the man said Boy
you give me a situation you have to put me through a simple surf examanution.
No stupid you mean a civil service examination." On the other side what we
have is Jim Crow as a synonym for segregation and this showcase has
objects that we would more traditionally associate with segregation. One of the
lessons of the Jim Crow Museum is that Jim Crow segregation was so pervasive
that it was omnipresent that it was in every aspect of American society. Every
major societal institution the family the government the media the military
higher education all major institutions in our society bought into the idea that
whites were superior to blacks in all ways that mattered. In every day in every
aspect of a society the racial hierarchy was cemented and manifested. There is a
sign here that that says for colored patrons only.
This shows the value of an object as a teaching tool. You've heard the story of
Miss Rosa Parks and how she did not want to give up her seat but what you might
not know is that in many communities blacks did right in front of the bus at
least all the way to the front except one seat from the white bus driver. But
when white people got on the bus they then had to move back. And what this sign
demonstrates if you notice the the metal metal parts at the end is that the sign
was movable and often it was the black person who had to not only get up to
give their seat but then had to themselves move the signage behind them.
In that case not only are you forced to move you're forced to participate in
your own victimization. The New Jim Crow Museum afforded us the opportunity to
build this wall. For many Americans when they think about what was Jim Crow they
think only of segregation laws we know better than that.
We know that Jim Crow included every aspect of society however the laws were
an important part of Jim Crow. Laws that for example forbade African Americans
and white Americans from playing checkers together or being buried in
the same Cemetery or fishing together or doing anything that implied social
equality. What we tried to do here was to put so many of those laws there that you
really had a sense of how pervasive those laws were under Jim Crow. Some of
those rules are codified into law. Some of them are norms that they're not laws
but they're just as real. So for example if you were in a deep south or a border
states you would have in constitutions and in local city ordinances laws that
forbade certain behavior but it is also the case that when you left the Jim Crow
South and came north that there were still practices sometimes they weren't
codified into law ,city ordinances, county ordinances, sometimes they weren't laws
in that sense, but trust me when I tell you, that they limited interactions
between African Americans and whites. That they limited opportunities for
African Americans. And that a person an African American who violated those laws
was punished. Jim Crow could not have existed without
violence. Real violence and the threat of violence. The reality is people would not
put up with a caste system being victimized within a caste system if they
did not fear violence and it is an unfortunate truth that in the United
States history that thousands of African Americans were brutally murdered. I think
the message to learn here is is that violence was instrumental. By that I mean
it was an instrument used to control African Americans to control their
ambition. To say to them no you will not have a white man's job, you will not date
a white man's woman, you will not attend a white man's school, and if you try to
do those things or anything that implies that you believe that you are an equal
to a white man you risk your life. If I had my druthers I would have scant
if any space devoted to the Ku Klux Klan. The reason I've never liked to emphasize
the Klan is because we don't want to associate racism with just an extremist
group. The fact though is we've always had to have some Klan material because
you cannot tell the story of America's race history our race relations in
America's history without talking about the Klan. As I said before the Jim Crow
could not have worked without violence and that violence was real and potential.
Here's a case where we have a real act of violence but it's also reproduced and
so it becomes a threat of violence. What you see here is a postcard. So not only
was the person beaten but it became an image a part of an object an everyday
object that would have been sent through the mail system. Blacks have been targets
in games in toys and also in real-life. Games like African Dodger where a black
person stuck their head through a hole and we've tried to recreate that here
and people would throw balls at their faces. That brutality was replaced some
would say by less brutal form meaning to use not real black people but wooden
blacks and plastic blacks and paper blacks, but of course symbolically the
idea is still there, that blacks don't experience pain in the same way that
whites do, that it's fun to throw at black people, that it is normative to
punish them. And that the punishment of them can be
public and can be fun for the Punisher Coon Chicken Inn was a chain of
restaurants mostly out west, Seattle Portland, Salt Lake City. Inside the Coon
chicken inn restaurants were every conceivable stereotype we can think of.
So in the Jim Crow Museum what we've done is is to recreate the face of the
Coon chicken inn porter as we enter the part of the museum that deals with
caricatures. The idea is this Jim Crow could not have existed without violence
and it could not have existed without millions I mean literally millions of
everyday caricatured objects which supported that system. We decided to use
as much as possible a home motif for the museum. Here we have a kitchen and in
that kitchen we have Mammy. Mammy was one of the dominant caricatures of
african-american women. She was dark. She was a large woman. She was at least by
American standards an unattractive woman. She had children and yet she was often
perceived as being desexualized. She was loyal to a fault. And that image of mammy
became this image that many white Americans associated with wholesomeness.
So her face was placed on breakfast foods and other kitchen related objects.
And so what we did here is to put literally dozens of mammy images in a
kitchen. All racial and ethnic groups have been caricatured in this country.
But the truth is no group has been caricatured as much and in as many ways
as have african-americans. Caricatures become rationalizations for the denial
of opportunities. If for example you believe the caricature of
african-american men Coons, meaning lazy, narr-a-do-wells,
ignorant, people who are cultural parasites. If you perpetuate that
caricature and accept that caricature then that becomes a rationalization for
denying African Americans the right to vote to attend good schools;
it becomes indeed a rationalization for supporting Jim Crow. Toys and games are
an especially pernicious way to spread racist ideas. If you look at the
depictions of African Americans and cartoons in the 1940s, what you notice is
is that they're actually caricatures. And as caricatures they become techniques to
use against African Americans who are pursuing what was then called social
equality. The same thing is true with toys and games except there's a there's
an added dimension there. In other words in toys and games African Americans are
portrayed as Coons and Toms and Sambos and pickinnies, but they're often portrayed
as victims. Targets as we saw before. Also toys to be made to dance that the
user can manipulate that the user can abuse in some ways some of the the toys
and games in a museum demonstrate. In the old museum we did not have space
to tell stories of how African Americans responded to racism. How they
responded to the violence. How they responded to the caricatures. We are
blessed in the new space to have some room to talk for example about how
African American artist deconstruct racism. How they sort of used their art
as a critique of racism. One of my favorite pieces is the piece "No More" by
John Lockhart because unlike the way mammy was portrayed in movies and on
some material objects, on his piece he has a strong Mammy. She's not content
with her position in life. She's not loyal. She is a woman who wants her
rights. The new museum affords us the
opportunity to tell the story of African Americans who achieved despite Jim Crow. The main idea is this that even during the violence of Jim Crow and the the
suffocating oppressive, almost omnipresent nature of Jim Crow, you had
African Americans who were scholars, who were inventors, who were thinkers, who
were civil rights leaders, politicians people who serve the country proudly in
the military, and we think that that is a testimony of the resiliency not just of
African American people but of people in general. The one part of the museum that
I wish was larger and indeed if we do an expansion this is one of the areas
that will be expanded. And that is the the area associated with civil rights.
Think of the civil rights movement this way. The signing of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act ,which we have one of the ink pens that President Johnson used to
sign that landmark legislation into law, the signing of that bill represents the
official death of Jim Crow. Now we know that the civil rights movement did not
achieve all of its goals. And we know in some ways that it lasted beyond its
period. But I like having a civil rights section of the museum because it was a
direct affront, assault on Jim Crow. Not just the laws but also Jim Crow the
customs. You know what once a guy said to me you can't legislate morality, you
can't legislate behavior, and and I thought about that yes that's true in
some ways, but the reality is this, when the laws the segregation laws were taken
down it made it easier for people to change behavior. Not some of the may be
the older people that had existed during the time but certainly for the
generations that followed. I think change in the laws did matter. And I think
ultimately they made it easier that change behavior. When people go through
the museum they first see all the history of who was Jim Crow what was Jim
Crow. And then they see the the role of violence and how violence served as an
underpinning of Jim Crow. And then they see also the role that caricatured
objects played in both reflecting and shaping Jim Crow. And it leaves a really
bad taste in your mouth. And then they get to the section on
african-american achievement. They get to the section on african-american artists
who use their art to deconstruct racism. And then they see the civil rights
movement which represented the death of Jim Crow. And then they feel good and
it's this this feel-good story. But the story didn't in there. The reality is
even though America is more democratic and more egalitarian than it has ever
been. Race still matters in the U.S. All the images that you would have seen in
the early part of the museum are still being produced.
They are reproduced on modern objects like mouse pads. Sometimes they reproduce
to fool customers so they are pretend antiques, fake antiques. Some of them are
just reproduced as cheap versions of the old objects. Because there is still a
market for those ideas. The truth is this the struggle against racism in general
continues and against racist imagery in particular continues. The Jim Crow Museum could could probably
outfit an entire section just on objects that defame President Obama. By defame I
don't just mean objects that disagree with his positions and policies.
Certainly any fair-minded thoughtful thinking person can disagree with any
politicians including presidents Obama's policies. I am speaking of objects that
defame him racially. That portray him as a monkey, a savage, a cannibal, a Tom. In
other words objects that treat him the same way african-americans were
portrayed during the Jim Crow period. If we do our work correctly. It means that a
visitor to the museum doesn't hear us talk the entire time. Instead we give
them enough of the information about the museum and then we create in a
deliberate intentional way a conversation among the people in the
party. So you look at an object and you are asked the question what is it you
see? What else is it you see? Why do you say that? Why do you believe what it is
you're saying? And people listed. So one person looking at Aunt Jemima sees
vestiges of slavery and segregation. Someone else sees in a real way a kind
of nostalgic recreation of their childhood. The purpose is not to tell
one that they write another that they're wrong, although I have an opinion, the
purpose is to have them engaged in dialogue. Again we're a we're at an
institution. We believe in a triumph of dialogue and we start with the visual
thinking strategies of what is it you see? This mural is called the Cloud of
Witnesses mural. It is one of the things that that we simply had to have in the
museum. Because it honors the lives of some of the people that were killed
during the civil rights movement. And if you notice the names are written because
we don't want people to forget their names. We don't want people to forget
that they pay the ultimate price. This room then, with them as the backdrop,
becomes a space where a small group of people 10 15 20 people can sit and can
dialogue about what they just saw, what they just experienced in the Jim Crow
Museum. But also they can talk about what is it we as Americans need to be doing.
Jim Crow Museum is very informative
I found this interesting, I had no idea what the craic was here.