BIG RAPIDS — Ferris State University broke ground Thursday on a new home for the Jim Crow Museum, a one-of-a-kind resource conversations about race.
FSU’s 30,000-piece collection of racist materials has been housed in the library basement for nearly two decades. The museum uses the historical objects to teach tolerance and promote social justice. The university said the new standalone building on the Big Rapids campus will allow them to expand opportunities for learning, teaching and discussion.
Under Jim Crow laws, African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens between 1877 and the mid-1960s through segregation and suppression of rights.
The new facility will improve FSU’s capacity to collect, preserve and cogently display artifacts of intolerance for educational use. It will also allow the museum to emphasize the stories of people who resisted injustice through achievements, activism, and lives of quiet dignity.
Ferris State President Bill Pink said the university is the perfect place for the museum, noting founders Woodbridge and Helen Ferris’ mission to provide an education to anyone in Michigan.
”At Ferris State, our institution has often been a national leader in laying pathways for innovation no matter the level of difficulty or the popularity. Our founders bravely opened their doors to all people at a time when that was not the expected or even accepted way to do things,” Pink said. “Now, 140 years later, we are still embracing that mission of equity. The new Jim Crow Museum will help us continue to educate those who come through its doors through a historic lens, and consequently, will attract students, visitors, scholars, and policymakers from across the country.”
David Pilgrim, Ferris State’s vice president for Diversity, Inclusion, and Strategic Initiatives, who founded the museum, said the new location will have an even greater impact on visitors.
”While we once focused on the hateful objects themselves, using them as teaching tools, we now also emphasize the stories of people who resisted that hate—through achievements, activism, and lives of quiet dignity,” he said. “This shift brings a hopeful perspective, centering resilience and resistance. By highlighting humanity’s enduring strength in overcoming hatred and injustice, the museum will continue to educate and inspire.”
Pilgrim said the space will serve as a resource for university scholars, and welcome school groups, faith communities, civic organizations, corporate leaders, policymakers, law enforcement, civil rights advocates, and many others.
The $22 million project attracted financial support from the Ferris State board of trustees, State of Michigan, The Ferris Foundation, corporate donors and individuals with contributions ranging from $5 to $200,000.