FSU receives Michigan Humanities Grant to preserve photos at the Jim Crow Museum

Ferris State University was the recipient of one of eight $15,000 grants recently awarded by Michigan Humanities, a state level extension of the National Endowment of the Humanities. FSU will direct the funds to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia to safeguard a collection of photos taken by renowned photographer Bruce Davidson in the 1960s of moments in the Civil Rights Movement. Doing so will enable the museum to preserve the photos in a way that will allow them to be displayed safely and to be loaned to other museums.

The collection of photos came to the museum in 2018 and administrators plan to begin to catalog and digitize the photos, ensuring that the originals can be displayed without risking deterioration. The digital preservation will make the collection more accessible as well. Cyndi Tiedt, collections and database administrator at the Jim Crow Museum said in a recent post from FSU, "Having a digital database will make the collection easier to manage. Our founder, David Pilgrim, will help us group the Davidson collection in themes, particularly as the images relate to the Black Lives Matter movement." In addition to the preservation efforts, the grant will also support the acquisition of travel crates to facilitate safe transportation of the photos for exhibitions at other museums.

The museum, founded in 2012 at Ferris State University, owns the largest public collection of racist memorabilia and artifacts in the United States. Displays at the museum span from the reconstruction era to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and consist mostly of artifacts that shed a light on the history of racism in the US and demonstrates the way racism has shaped the culture of the country. The intent of the museum is to prompt visitors to deeply consider the impact that the racist legacy of the US continues to impact the lives of black people. The photos from Bruce Davidson add to that story. The preservation efforts, made possible by this new grant will secure the impact of the collection into the future.