Many Rivers to Cross: Racist Images and Messages in Jim Crow Era

PBS | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Racist images in the Jim Crow era were used as propaganda to send messages that demeaned African Americans and legitimized violence against them. A visit to the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University in Michigan—home to the largest collection of racist memorabilia in the country—reveals racist memorabilia and messages in all forms, from kitchen utensils to postcards featuring images of public whippings. Among the museum’s collection is a row of caricatures—the Pickaninny, the Tom, the coon, the tragic mulatto, the Jezebel, the savage.
“All groups, all racial and ethnic groups in this country have been caricatured. None of them has been caricatured as often and in so many ways as have Africans and their American descendants,”  says David Pilgrim,  founder of the Jim Crow Museum.