New Museum Is Showing The Real Racism In America

It is a museum which is probably best avoided for those with a sensitive disposition.

Provocative exhibits at one of America’s newest museum’s include a full-size replica of a lynching tree with many items portraying black men as lazy, violent or inarticulate.

The objects displayed in the U.S. state of Michigan’s newest museum 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.

Its name – Jim Crow – is often used to describe the segregation laws which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s.


Mr Pilgrim, who is black, makes no apologies for the provocative exhibits. The goal of the $1.3 million gallery, he explained, is ‘to get people to think deeply.’

The displays are startling. The n-word is prevalent throughout and black women are shown as kerchief-wearing mammies, sexually charged Jezebels or other stereotypes.

Jim Crow: The name of the museum is often used to describe the segregation laws which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s

The shocking images exact an emotional cost.

‘There’s parts in that room – the main room – where it’s quite gut-wrenching,’ said Nancy Mettlach, a student conduct specialist at Ferris.

‘And the thought that was going through my mind was: “How can one human being do this to another human being?”‘

Mr Pilgrim, a former sociology professor at Ferris State, started the collection in the 1970s in Alabama. Along the way, he ‘spent more time in antique and flea markets than the people who work there.’

Source http://blacklikemoi.com/2012/04/black-news-2/inside-the-new-1-3m-museum-of-racist-memorabilia-with-9000-exhibits-that-leave-most-visitors-angry-or-offended/

The New Jim Crow rise in the South.

- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, appearing at a Martin Luther King holiday rally in South Carolina, warned on Monday that voting rights laws are still at risk and said aggressive enforcement of those laws is "a moral imperative."

Weeks after his Justice Department blocked a South Carolina voter identification law it said would make it harder for tens of thousands of voters, mostly minorities, to cast a ballot, Holder said the principle of electoral equality was still endangered.

"The reality is that - in jurisdictions across the country - both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common," Holder, who is black, told hundreds of people attending an annual rally to honor King, the slain civil rights leader, on the steps of the South Carolina state capitol.

"Protecting the right to vote, ensuring meaningful access, and combating discrimination must be viewed, not only as a legal issue - but as a moral imperative," Holder said. "Ensuring that every eligible citizen has the right to vote must become our common cause."

The South Carolina law required voters to show a state-issued photo identification card to cast a ballot in an election. Republican supporters said it would prevent voter fraud, but Democratic critics argued it would make it harder for those without driver's licenses, many of them poor and black, to cast a ballot.

The Justice Department blocked the law after ruling it could hinder the right to vote of tens of thousands of people. It noted that just more than a third of the state's minorities who are registered voters did not have a driver's license. The state plans to fight the ruling in court.

South Carolina is one of six Republican-led states that tightened their laws last year to require a photo ID. Two other Republican-led states have similar laws in place, while 23 other states require voters to produce some form of identification.

Under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, South Carolina is one of 16 largely Southern states that must seek approval from the Justice Department or the federal courts for changes made to state voting laws and boundaries for voting districts.

"This keystone of our voting rights laws is now being challenged as unconstitutional by several jurisdictions," Holder said, adding there was still work to be done to ensure voter equality.

Holder was invited to the annual rally to honor King by the state chapter of the civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

South Carolina holds its Republican presidential primary on Saturday. The Republican candidates have criticized the Justice Department's ruling as an example of Washington's bureaucratic intrusion on state rights under President Barack Obama.

read more;http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-voterid-idUSTRE80F1CB20120116

Gov. Haley Barbour release inmates in order to repent for a racist.

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday he's "very comfortable" with his final-days decisions to grant pardons or other clemency to more than 200 people, including convicted killers — decisions that outraged victims' families and dismayed even some of his most devoted supporters.

Barbour, a Republican who had considered but decided against running for president this year, said that 189 of the people who got pardons or other reprieves had already been released from prison before his actions. Only 10, he said, have been or will be fully released from prison, while several with expensive, chronic conditions are receiving medical leave.

"I am fully confident the pardons and other clemency I have given are all valid," Barbour told reporters at a news conference, his first on the subject, at the Jackson-area law firm where he now works.

Barbour granted pardons and other reprieves in his final days before leaving office after two terms Tuesday. Five inmates who had worked as trusties at the Governor's Mansion — four of them, convicted of murder — were released last weekend. One of the freed men had fatally shot his estranged wife as she held their baby in 1993 and then shot her male friend in the head; the friend survived.


Barbour initially declined to comment on the pardons or to provide detailed information about how many of those receiving them were still in prison. He then issued a statement after leaving office, after the pardons had generated a firestorm of criticism.

By the time state corrections officials said Wednesday that 21 on the list were still in custody, state Attorney General Jim Hood was calling the pardons "shameful" and questioning whether Barbour had violated the state constitution by not ensuring inmates gave enough public notice about their possible release.

Hood, the only statewide Democratic officeholder in Mississippi, also persuaded a state judge to temporarily block release of the 21 still in custody. State corrections officials said Friday they would start to release 13 of the 21 inmates because the 13 were given medical discharges and weren't bound by the same public notice requirements before release.


Barbour on Friday reiterated that it's a tradition in Mississippi for governors to free trusties who worked at the Governor's Mansion. And the former governor said he's not concerned that the freed trusties might harm anyone.
"I have absolute confidence, so much confidence, that I let my grandchildren play with these five men," Barbour, 64, said of the trusties freed this week.

He said the Mississippi Department of Corrections picks inmates who work at the Governor's Mansion. Typically, they are men who committed crimes of passion. Corrections officials assign them, he said, because they are not likely to commit another violent crime and make good workers.

Records show Barbour gave "full, complete and unconditional" pardons to 203 people, including 17 convicted of murder, 10 convicted of manslaughter, eight convicted of aggravated assault and five convicted of drunken-driving incidents that caused deaths.

He granted some sort of reprieve to 26 inmates who were in custody — 10 full pardons; 13 medical releases; one suspension of sentence; one conditional, indefinite suspension of sentence; and one conditional clemency.

read morehttp://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/gov-barbour-comfortable-pardons-15357271