Jim Crow Museum gets a new home at Ferris State University

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. -- Ferris State University is celebrating the grand opening of its new, state-of-the-art Jim Crow Museum this week, debuting a facility designed to examine race relations and foster historical reflection.

Beginning Wednesday, September 30, the museum's new building will house more than 30,000 artifacts. University officials noted that the structural design itself is built to reflect narrative themes of oppression, resistance, healing, and overcoming. The facility aims to offer visitors a unique environment to connect historical racial struggles to personal experiences.

A two-day grand opening celebration is scheduled for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1:

• Wednesday, Sept. 30: Opening events kick off at 1 p.m. with a special program at Williams Auditorium, located at 630 S. Michigan Ave. A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony will follow, after which visitors can participate in a self-guided museum experience supported by on-site staff.
• Thursday, Oct. 1: The schedule continues at 10 a.m. with a facilitated discussion featuring Dr. David Pilgrim, the museum's founder and Ferris State's vice president for Diversity, Inclusion, and Strategic Initiatives. Following the presentation, the museum will open its doors for free public admission.

Here are more details from a Ferris State news release:

On October 1, the celebration will continue with a facilitated discussion featuring Dr. David Pilgrim, the museum's founder and Ferris State University's vice president for Diversity, Inclusion, and Strategic Initiatives, beginning at 10 a.m. Free museum admission will follow.

Pilgrim grew up in the deep South at the end of the Jim Crow Era and knew from a young age that objects can be used as teaching tools.

With that in mind, he spent decades building the collection, acquiring artifacts and accepting donations from people across the country. Those efforts ultimately led to the opening of the original Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State in the 1990s.

Since then, both Pilgrim and his team have helped to share why such a historical museum belonged in Big Rapids.

“It’s in our DNA as an institution,” he said. “Woodbridge Ferris's belief was that education should help make the world better, and he encouraged us all to go out and make the world a better place. That’s what we want to do through this museum and its history; by not repeating what divides.”

The Jim Crow Museum started over three decades ago. The original museum began as a modest 500-square-foot room in the Starr Building and later transitioned to a larger 3,500-square-foot space in the lower level of the FLITE building in 2012.

However, both spaces offered limited space for community engagement, lectures and seminars, storage needs, and display areas.

Now poised to open the new, $22 million, 26,000 square-foot facility this week, Pilgrim emphasized how it expands the museum’s ability to serve as an important resource for scholars and draw visitors from around the world.

“Often times people think of the Jim Crow Museum and just think of the horrors of the past or the negative objects. However, the way we've built this new facility, it shows African Americans pushing back against those objects with achievement, with activism, and with, quite frankly, just living their lives with dignity,” he said.

“I want to show not just the objects, but the pushback against the objects. Both of those are teaching opportunities.”

In addition to the museum’s 7,500-square-foot exhibit gallery that serves as the centerpiece, the JCM also houses a library reading room, a gallery seminar space and a recording studio to archive stories told by visitors who reflect on how the Jim Crow Era affected them and generations before them.

Pilgrim also stressed that more space also offers the chance to preserve each artifact for generations to come, while pairing artifacts and information presented in context, telling the stories of people and the times and continuing to build on the museum’s themes: Witness, Understand, Heal.

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