The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State

One of the more remarkable places in Big Rapids is the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, at Ferris State University. It holds the country’s largest public collection of racist objects. These are everyday items, advertisements, and images. They pushed harmful stereotypes about Black Americans from the segregation era onward.

The museum isn’t a celebration of any of that. Its stated purpose is the opposite. It uses these objects to teach, to spark honest conversation about racism, and to highlight the people who resisted it. Ferris professor David Pilgrim founded it in 1996, built around objects he had spent decades collecting. In 2012 it moved into a much larger gallery on campus. It draws scholars, students, and visitors from around the country and the world.

It’s a sober, thought-provoking stop, and a genuine point of pride and reflection for the community. Admission is free, and the collection keeps outgrowing its rooms. In December 2024 the university broke ground on a standalone building. That was nearly thirty years after the museum began as one professor’s boxes of hard-to-look-at objects.