The university is running out of space for its Jim Crow exhibits and parts of the museum have been damaged due to flooding.
“The collection is at risk in the space that it’s in," said Kathy Mullins, vice president of advancement and marketing at Ferris State. "So we need to get it into a safe space and a larger space so that we can show the entire collection."
The Jim Crow Museum features more than 20,000 items in the lower level of the library on campus — what the university calls “the nation’s largest publicly accessible collection of artifacts of intolerance.”
They’re meant to educate and contextualize the history of the Jim Crow era.
“Every time I walk through this museum I experience something different. It’s a different emotion; I learn something new. “What people will learn as they walk through this project will make this world a better place,” Mullins said.
The museum opened in 2012, founded by David Pilgrim, vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
