David Pilgrim

David Pilgrim is a professor, orator, and human rights activist. He is best known as the founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia—a ten-thousand-piece collection of racist artifacts located at Ferris State University, which uses objects of intolerance to teach about race, race relations, and racism.

Check out a Virtual Tour of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia HERE

• Book events
• Reviews
• More from David

---

Praise

For David Pilgrim’s previous works:

“One of the most important contributions to the study of American history that I have ever experienced.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research

“This was a horrific time in our history, but it needs to be taught and seen and heard. This is very well done, very well done.”
—Malaak Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, on the Jim Crow Museum

“The museum’s contents are only a small part of the damaging effects of the Jim Crow laws that were found all across America, including bright and sunny California. This history is not only an important part of understanding where America was but, in an age of states making it harder and harder for citizens to vote, it is relevant to note that we have been here before.”
—Henry Rollins, host of the History Channel’s 10 Things You Don’t Know About

“For decades the author has been on a Pilgrimage to bring out from our dank closets the racial skeletons of our past. His is a crucial mission, because he forces us to realize that race relations grew worse in the first several decades of the twentieth century—something many Americans never knew or now want to suppress. This book allows us to see, even feel the racism of just a generation or two ago—and Pilgrim shows that elements of it continue, even today. See it! Read it! Feel it! Then help us all transcend it!”
—James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and coeditor of The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader

“The museum has been one of my treasured go-to resources for teaching people about the deep-seated roots of the racism that persists in our collective subconscious. Only by facing our history and its hold on our psyche can we construct a better culture. This work is invaluable.”
—damali ayo, author of How to Rent a Negro and Obamistan! Land without Racism

---

---

Praise

“Pilgrim’s book is a well-researched, comprehensive, and ever-present documentation of where we’ve been and where we still are. All of America needs to confront these injustices in order to put them where they belong, in the past, not the present.”
—Philip J. Merrill, CEO and founder of Nanny Jack & Co.

“Undergirding David Pilgrim’s effort is his powerful belief that we, as a society, heal better when we stare down the evils that have walked among us, together.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University”

In its compelling reimagination of the museum experience, the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia leverages the potential of museums to effect positive social change in a troubled world. By creating a forum for the safe exchange of ideas, Jim Crow transforms its campus and the world it inhabits, one visit at a time.”
—Bradley L. Taylor, associate director, Museum Studies Program, University of Michigan

“This book allows us to see, even feel the racism of just a generation or two ago—and Pilgrim shows that elements of it continue, even today. See it! Read it! Feel it! Then help us all transcend it!”
—James W Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me

---

---

Praise

“An interesting and important project.”
—Noam Chomsky

“There is hope. Thanks to Ian Brennan for shining a light.”
—Bill Frisell

“Every page of Silenced by Sound is like listening to a fresh, bracing, previously unknown kind of music for the very first time.”
—David Harrington, Kronos Quartet

“Brennan presents a hefty, bracing tome . . .”
—Booklist

“. . . full of wisdom from someone who cares deeply about the power of real music.”
—MOJO

---

Book Events

---

Reviews

• Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum: A Review
• Watermelons, Nooses and Straight Razors in Publishers Weekly
• Watermelons, Nooses and Straight Razors in CHOICE
• Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance
• Using Racist Images to Combat Racism and Encourage Resistance
• Understanding Jim Crow: A Review in CHOICE
• Understanding Jim Crow: A Review
• Understanding Jim Crow in Socialism and Democracy
• Understanding Jim Crow in Foreword Reviews
• This Professor Has Collected American Racism in a College’s Basement
• These Racist Collectibles Will Make Your Skin Crawl
• Remembering Jim Crow in the Age of Trump: An Analysis of the Rhetorical Functions of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
• Racist Objects: A Painful Past Still Present
• Racist Memorabilia Teaches Awareness at Jim Crow Museum
• Museum Uses Racist Memorabilia To Fight Racism
• How America Bought and Sold Racism, and Why It Still Matters
• Discovery: “Understanding Jim Crow” by David Pilgrim
• “President Obama has been a cottage industry for racist imagery and racist memorabilia”

---

Interviews

• David Pilgrim on Courageous Conversations
• David Pilgrim on This Happened with Henry Veguilla
• David Pilgrim on How Companies are Reckoning with Racist Branding on CNN
• David Pilgrim, author of Understanding Jim Crow on CNN: America in Crisis
• Dr. David Pilgrim on The Marc Steiner Show
• What good can come of racist memorabilia? David Pilgrim on the CBC
• An Interview with Dr. David Pilgrim
• Watermelons, Nooses and Straight Razors – An Interview with David Pilgrim
• RaceNYT: is This America?

---

Mentions

• Ferris staff release new book, ‘Haste to Rise’
• When Trump Calls a Black Woman ‘Angry,’ He Feeds This Racist Trope
• Reading up on race? Here are more than 30 Michigan authors to check out
• What Happens Now to All That Washington N.F.L. Merchandise?
• From hate to tolerance: Jim Crow museum curator David Pilgrim comes to Lansing Community College
• Ralph Northman was far from alone: Why blackface keeps coming up

---

Blog

• Haste to Rise on Library Thing
• 15 anti-racist Michigan books to get you through the holidays and quarantine
• Wanda Lloyd and David Pilgrim in conversation: Southern Festival of Books
• David Pilgrim and the Jim Crow Museum on C-Span
• At the Jim Crow Museum, We Use Racist Objects to Engage Hearts and Heads in Social Justice
• Ferris staff release new book, ‘Haste to Rise’
• When Trump Calls a Black Woman ‘Angry,’ He Feeds This Racist Trope
• Reading up on race? Here are more than 30 Michigan authors to check out
• What Happens Now to All That Washington N.F.L. Merchandise?
• David Pilgrim on Courageous Conversations
• David Pilgrim on This Happened with Henry Veguilla
• David Pilgrim on How Companies are Reckoning with Racist Branding on CNN
• David Pilgrim, author of Understanding Jim Crow on CNN: America in Crisis
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—A Man for This Season— By David Pilgrim
• Pilgrim, Hughes Uncover Forgotten History of Campus Diversity, Identify Prominent African- American Attendees in Early 20th Century
• David Pilgrim in conversation with Franklin Hughes— Expect Diversity
• Challenge Racist Narratives with Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors
• David Pilgrim’s TedX Talk: My Racial Journey: Using Hateful Items as Teaching Tools

Take a listen to “Brothers” written and read by David Pilgrim