MasterMine

MasterMine | Episode 26 S2 | Dr. David Pilgrim | Sociologist/Author/Public Speaker | Founder of The Jim Crow Musuem


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Dr. David Pilgrim grew up in Mobil Alabama towards the end of the Jim Crow Era. It was there he got his first racist artifact and decades later he is still collecting. He is the founder and Director of the Jim Crow Museum, the nation’s largest, publicly accessible collection of racist objects, located at Ferris State University where he serves as Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. Dr. Pilgrim, an applied sociologist with a doctorate from The Ohio State University, is a Ferris State University Distinguished Teacher. He has been interviewed by National Public Radio, Time magazine, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and dozens of newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Pilgrim is also the author of Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice, Watermelons Nooses and Straight Razors, Haste to Rise, and The Klan Unmasked. Pilgrim’s countless writings, many found at the Jim Crow Museum website, www.ferris.edu/jimcrow, are used by scholars, students, and civil rights and human rights workers to better understand historical and contemporary expressions of racism. His writings, scholarly and creative, deal with multiculturalism and race relations. His short stories have been published in Calaloo, Obsidian, African American Review, Aim, and Shooting Star. Pilgrim has been invited to deliver public lectures at dozens of institutions throughout the United States and Canada, challenging audiences to think deeply about diversity, inclusion, and race relations. Most recently, he also presented at NCORE - the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education.

In 2004, Pilgrim produced, with Clayton Rye, the documentary Jim Crow's Museum to explain his approach to battling racism. The film won several awards including Best Documentary at the 2004 Flint Film Festival. Jim Crow's Museum has shown nationally on PBS affiliates including as part of the series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. He also served as a consultant to Will Smith on UPN’s All of Us for the episode called "The N Word."
Pilgrim and Carrie Weis, a Ferris State colleague, created two traveling exhibitions to take the Jim Crow Museum's lessons to a national audience. Hateful Things is a 39-piece traveling exhibition of objects found in the Jim Crow Museum. The objects are accompanied by didactic panels that place the images in a proper historical context—offering insight into their past and present popularity. Dr. Pilgrim is looking to expand the Jim Crow Museum as they are constantly getting donations of racist artifacts. 


Jim Crow Museum - YouTube

The Nations Biggest Collection Of Racist Objects Are All In A Michigan College Basement - YouTube


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MasterMineBy Mr. G

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