The objects displayed in Michigan’s newest museum range from the ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque — a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors cringe.
That’s the idea behind the “Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia”, which says it has amassed the nation’s largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond.
The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University “is all about teaching, not a shrine to racism,” said David Pilgrim, the founder and curator who started building the collection as a teenager.
The mission of the Jim Crow Museum is to use objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice. The museum features six exhibit areas — Who and What is Jim Crow, Jim Crow Violence, Jim Crow and Anti-Black Imagery, Battling Jim Crow Imagery, Attacking Jim Crow Segregation, and Beyond Jim Crow.
Where: 1010 Campus Drive, Big Rapids.
Cost: Free.
Hours: Noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday; group tours by appointment.
Information: Call 231-591-5873, visit http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow or e-mail jimcrowmuseum@ferris.edu.
Sources :
Mike Householder, “Racist memorabilia museum opens at Ferris State University”, Lansing State Journal, April 20, 2012.
John Carlisle, “Museum’s collection of racist kitsch meant to spur dialogue”, Detroit Free Press, March 10, 2013, plus video
Michigan is one of seven states that will lose a congressional seat in 2022, dropping the representation in the U.S. House from this state to 13, as the results of the 2020 Census Apportionment were delivered today to President Joe Biden.
Other states losing a seat include California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Texas will gain two seats.
Five states will gain one seat each — Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.
The population for Michigan was pegged at 10,084,442 by the Census.
Source : MIRS Capitol Capsule, April 26, 2021.
On April 27, 1763 Ottawa leader Pontiac led a historic effort to bring disparate tribes together to drive the Redcoats from their land. A council was held on the shores of the Ecorse River, about ten miles southwest of Detroit. Using the teachings of the Indian prophet Neolin to inspire his listeners, Pontiac convinced a group of Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatomis, and Hurons to join him in an attempt to seize Fort Detroit. On April 27, 2013, 250 years to the day, a commemorative event honoring this council was held in Council Point Park in modern day Lincoln Park.
On the anniversary, local officials dedicated a new Michigan historical marker for Pontiac’s Council in a Michigan Division of Natural Resources ceremony.
As part of the celebrations, Chief Pontiac descendant Rudy Pontiac, 72, talked about his ancestor and the current plight of American Indians.
“He did a great thing, you know, unite the tribes and tell his people that they are taking all the land away from us and we won’t have anyplace to go,” Pontiac, who retired from General Motors after working in product development and civil rights, said recently from his home in the Grand Rapids area. “It’s a bad thing that happened to my people.”
Chief Pontiac tried to organize the American Indians to capture the British forts in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions and force them out. They successfully seized nine forts, but eventually were overtaken by Europeans and colonial Americans.
Listen to audio, Michigan Radio interview (April 24, 2013) with Ben Hinmon, Cultural Instructor of the Seventh Generation Program of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe in Mount Pleasant. Hinmon is the Great-Great-Great-Great Grandson of Chief Pontiac.
Sources :
Michigan History, March/April 2013.
For another article, see Tammy Stables Battaglia , “American Indians to gather in Lincoln Park to honor Chief Pontiac“, MLive, April 22, 2013.
On April 27, 1764, the Provincial Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons in New York issued a charter to a Masonic lodge in Detroit. The Royal American Regiment’s Lieutenant John Christie was the master of the lodge, Michigan’s first and the first one established west of the Allegheny Mountains.. The Detroit Masons first adopted the name Zion Lodge in 1794 when they operated under a new charter from Quebec. With American occupation of Michigan, the lodge again came under the Grand Lodge of New York, which issued a new charter in 1806 to “Zion Lodge No. 1” of Detroit. This name was retained by the Grand Lodge of Michigan when it was formed in 1826. Zion Lodge suspended operations during the War of 1812 and during the anti-masonic agitation on 1829-1845, but each time its functions were resumed.
A vintage postcard showing Detroit’s Masonic Temple.
Sources:
Michigan Historic Marker : Registered Site S0255 Erected 1964 Location: 500 Temple Avenue Detroit, Wayne County
On April 27, 1833, the steamboat Michigan, the first steamer built in Detroit and the most- advanced Great Lakes passenger vessel of its time, was launched from Detroit.
Source: Mich-Again’s Day
Two members of Company K, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters – Louis Miskoguon and Amos Ashkebugnekay (along with 250 others from Michigan) — were aboard the Sultana when it exploded and burned. How ironic. After surviving the horrors of the Confederate Prison at Andersonville, Georgia, to face death a second time on the way home to Michigan. Fortunately they were able to swim ashore and may have walked the rest of the way home.
It was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, more costly than even the April 14, 1912 sinking of the Titanic, when 1,517 people were lost. But because the Sultana went down when it did, the disaster was not well covered in the newspapers or magazines, and was soon forgotten. It is scarcely remembered today.
April 1865 was a busy month; On April 9, at Appomattox Couthouse, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Five days later President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. On April 26 his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was caught and killed. That same day General Joseph Johnson surrendered the last large Confederate army. Shortly thereafter Union troops captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The Civil War was over. Northern newspapers rejoiced.
News of a terrible steamboat tragedy was relegated to the newspaper’s back pages. In a nation desensitized to death, 1,700 more did not seem such an enormous tragedy that it does today.
The accident happened at 2 a.m., when three of the steamship’s four boilers exploded. The reason the death toll was almost exactly equal to the number of Union troops killed at the battle of Shiloh (1,758) was gross government incompetence. The Sultana was legally registered to carry 376 people. She had six times more than that on board, due to the bribery of army officers and the extreme desire of the former POWs to get home.
Sources:
Who was who in Company K, 2010, by Chris Czopek.
Remembering Sultana from Stephen Ambrose, Expedition Journal, National Geographic News, May 1, 2001.
Philip P. Mason and Paul J. Pentecost, “From Bull Run to Appomattox : Michigan’s Role in the Civil War. Detroit, MI : Wayne State University, 1861 includes a chapter on the sinking of the Sultana.
On April 27, 1915, the wooden bridge to Detroit’s recreational park, Belle Isle, burned, stranding 1,000 visitors and 100 vehicles on the island. Detroit and Windsor ferry boats left their cross-river runs to evacuate the stranded.
Sources : MIRS Capitol Capsule, April 27, 2021.
On April 27, 1938, more than half of Oxford High School’s 300 students refused to attend classes and paraded through the streets carrying banners protesting the school’s decision to drop the football program for a year for economic reasons.
Superintendent R.W. Zinn asked the students to return to class, but they refused, shouting for a contract to be offered to the football coach. Students who wanted to attend classes had to cross a picket line.
The Oxford School Board decided to invest its limited resources to keeping the high school band because its success “has made Oxford more music minded than football minded,” according to the board. However, after the protest, the board reversed course and reinstated football as long as the players’ parents agreed to release the school of liability in case of injuries.
Source: Detroit Free Press
Michigan was not required to pay for a prisoner’s sex change operation, according to a decision by state Attorney General Frank Kelley on April 27, 1976.
A query had come from state Department of Corrections Director Perry Johnson about inmate James Silva, who was serving 25-50 years for assault with intent to commit armed robbery and was up for parole in January 1981. Johnson called it “an unprecedented case” for his department.
According to a psychiatric consultant’s report, Silva, who preferred the name Sherry and once tried to self-mutilate, fit all the criteria of a transsexual. He “believes that he is the opposite sex mentally from what his body is,” devoted most of his time in the previous two years to finding out where he could have gender reassignment surgery after prison, and “has done everything he can to assume the trappings of a female,” such as wearing women’s shoes, plucking his eyebrows, wearing lipstick and “using a higher, more feminine tone of voice.”
In Kelley’s decision, he wrote that inmates have a constitutional right to essential medical treatment, but that “the treatment requested cannot be considered essential medical treatment.”
For the full article, see Zlati Meyer, “This week in Michigan history: A decision on who pays for inmate’s sex-change surgery”, Detroit Free Press, April 27, 2014.
Here’s a game: which of these political, athletic or entertainment celebrities did not appear in Michigan’s Capitol to testify or appear before a committee, a rally or a special session:
Jim Brown
Howard Jarvis
Ted Nugent
Sr. Helen Prejean
Willie Nelson
Al Kaline
Ward Connerly
Magic Johnson
George Cadle Price
Cesar Chavez
Jack Valenti
Muhammad Ali
Now think about it for a moment. Ready? Okay:
Jim Brown. Possibly the greatest running back in football history, and by all accounts the greatest lacrosse player ever, Mr. Brown just sort of materialized at the back of the Senate chamber in 2007, where he shook hands but was never introduced from the podium. He was in Lansing to promote a program aimed at ending gang violence.
Howard Jarvis. The father of the California tax cut movement, and later a fabled extra on “Airplane,” Mr. Jarvis spoke to a rally of several thousand people from the Capitol steps shortly after the success of Proposition 13 in 1978. He encouraged support for tax cut drives then moving through Lansing.
Ted Nugent. The Motor City Madman, rock and roller, fanatic gun and hunting advocate, and right wing icon, has been something of a fixture in Michigan politics for several decades. But he actually testified in 1998 before a committee chaired by then Sen. David Jaye for expanded concealed weapons rights. It was insulting, he said, to have to go to gun board to get a concealed weapon permit when his Second Amendment rights were “guaranteed by the Constitution but given to me by God.”
Sr. Helen Prejean. The internationally renowned opponent of capital punishment and author of “Dead Man Walking” was invited by then-Sen. George McManus to help rally opponents of the death penalty. There was discussion of starting a petition drive to allow for capital punishment. At a press conference, Ms. Prejean was challenged by Mr. Jaye, who was a bit tongue-tied against the better prepared Ms. Prejean.
Al Kaline. The Detroit Tigers great was enthusiastically welcomed by both chambers of the Legislature after his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Ward Connerly. The face of the effort to end affirmative action in California was in Michigan several times as the state went through a campaign to end affirmative action constitutionally. After one committee appearance, Mr. Connerly got into an informal but intense debate with then-Sen. Virgil Smith (now a judge and father of the recently resigned Sen. Virgil Smith).
Magic Johnson. Reaching the House podium following a massive parade when the Michigan State University men’s basketball team won the 1979 NCAA men’s basketball championship (in a game with Indiana State and Larry Bird that changed the scope of the sport), the then sophomore Mr. Johnson said he hoped people would support MSU “whether I go or I stay.” Reporters looked at each other and said, “He’s going to the NBA.”
George Cadle Price. WHO? Mr. Price was the first and one of the longest-serving prime ministers of Belize. It’s not exactly clear why he was in Lansing in 1979, other than to promote tourism and economic development. A House staff member who oversaw what was known as the document room played a big role in getting him a chance to speak to the House chamber when session was not in, and then desperately dragooned other staff, reporters and tourists into the chamber to hear Mr. Price speak.
Cesar Chavez. The leader of the farmworker’s movement spoke to the House in late 1979. He was soft spoken, wore a work shirt and pants, spoke of how the workers felt they had a mission to bring food to all people and completely enraptured everyone who heard him.
Jack Valenti. Best known as the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, and a fixture of the annual Oscars broadcast, Mr. Valenti had also been a top aide to former President Lyndon Johnson. He appeared to speak before the House Judiciary Committee in the early 1980s against a bill to regulate movie theaters. A very sharp dresser, Mr. Valenti also surprised people because he was, ah, less tall than expected.
Muhammad Ali. The Greatest. He came to the Legislature in 1997 to promote efforts for greater protections for children. Because of his Parkinson’s disease, he did not speak himself but an assistant delivered his testimony. And probably no person attracted more attention to his appearance than Mr. Ali. People were desperate to meet him, and he was thoroughly gracious.
Willie Nelson. Okay, you’re thinking he spoke about legalizing marijuana or urged farmer rights. But beyond playing in a number of venues in the Lansing area, he did not appear before a rally or the Legislature. If you picked him, you win.
Source: John Lindstrom, “Which Of These Celebrities Did Not Appear Before The Legislature?”, Gongwer Blog, April 27, 2017.