[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 12, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1394-E1395]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RACIST MEMORABILIA IN HARLEM: A SYMBOL OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 12, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to enter into the Record, an 
article by Anthony Ramirez, titled ``A Gift Shop in Harlem Finds 
Customers for Memorabilia of Racist America,'' published in the July 5, 
2006 edition of the New York Times. Ramirez interviewed Mrs. Mary 
Taylor and Ms. Glenda Taylor, owners of a Harlem shop that sells 
collectibles from the Jim Crow era. While some (Black) residents find 
it offensive to see the display of the white robe of the Ku Klux Klan, 
others are as driven to collect these reminders out of a `lest-we-
forget' impulse.
  Ms. Taylor said that the main reason that blacks collect 
objectionable objects is that they love and hate the item at the same 
time. They are a symbol of dehumanization of the African Americans 
through caricature that justified their political, social and economic 
oppression. This stereotyping of African-Americans perpetuated the 
belief that Blacks were unfit to be first-class citizens. At the same 
time, these ``contemptible collectibles'' are emblems of the civil 
rights movement and evidence of how much change has occurred and the 
positive changes that we take great pride in.
  The Taylors liken their shop to a time machine. Older black 
customers, prompted by the

[[Page E1395]]

memorabilia, like to reminisce about the times gone by. As the elder 
Ms. Taylor said, if there is a shop like this, it should be in Harlem. 
I concur. These objects represent a painful period of our history. But 
they also symbolize the period when we rose up to claim our fundamental 
rights as human beings. I acknowledge that it is an ugly part of our 
heritage, but it should not be hidden away. It serves as a reminder of 
the era of Jim Crow and a warning that we should never forget the 
negative consequences of racism.
  David Pilgrim, who is Black, argues that these ``contemptible 
collectibles'' either belong in a museum or in a garbage can, and not 
in stores. He runs a temporary museum with 5,000 racist objects and is 
trying to raise funds to establish a permanent Jim Crow Museum of 
Racist Memorabilia. The Taylors would like to establish a museum as 
well, but they too lack the funding.
  Mr. Speaker, I bring this effort to preserve this history to the 
attention of my colleagues and to nongovernmental organization who 
might be interested in the creation of a museum display the momentos of 
the Jim Crow era and to serve as a concrete reminder to the Congress of 
the perils of exclusionary politics.

  A Gift Shop in Harlem Finds Customers for the Memorabilia of Racist 
                                America

                          (By Anthony Ramirez)

       The day Glenda Taylor placed the white hood and white robe 
     of the Ku Klux Klan in the window of her Harlem shop was one 
     to remember.
       At the foot of the Klan gown was an 1868 issue of Harper's 
     Weekly depicting a dead black man, with the caption ``One 
     Vote Less.'' Passers-by of all races stopped, stunned, in 
     front of her memorabilia shop, Aunt Meriam's, on West 125th 
     Street, Ms. Taylor said.
       One black woman dispatched her 10-year-old daughter into 
     the shop to confront Ms. Taylor, 50, who is black. The girl, 
     Ms. Taylor recalled, said something like, ``How could you?''
       Ms. Taylor and her mother, Mary Taylor, sell all manner of 
     black memorabilia, including advertisements for the Cotton 
     Club and playbills for a Broadway musical starring Sammy 
     Davis, Jr.
       But the Taylors and dealers like them also sell 
     collectibles from the Jim Crow era--cookie jars, coin banks, 
     matchbook covers, fruit-box labels, ashtrays, postcards, 
     sheet music, just to name a few items--that portray blacks in 
     grotesquely racist ways. Little boys eat watermelon. Men 
     steal chickens. Women happily scrub and clean.
       While selling such items in the heart of America's most 
     famous black neighborhood might seem offensive, dealers say 
     that blacks rather than whites tend to be the ones collecting 
     the most repellent objects.
       ``Why do some Jews collect Holocaust material?'' asked 
     Wyatt Houston Day of the Swann Galleries in Manhattan, who 
     organizes an annual auction of African-Americana. ``Any 
     people who endure a Holocaust tend to collect, out of a lest-
     we-forget impulse. It is very much akin to what happened to 
     blacks, and the objects are just as vile.''
       With the civil rights movement, many whites became ashamed 
     to keep their own racially caricatured bric-a-brac, or that 
     of their parents and grandparents. The rise of the Internet 
     caused prices to fall as attics and cupboards emptied and 
     glutted the market on eBay and Yahoo auction sites. An 
     especially prized type of cookie jar--the McCoy mammy jar--
     once sold for as much as $600; it now sells for as little as 
     $50.
       ``The main reason that black people collect'' objectionable 
     objects, Glenda Taylor said, is ``that they love that item 
     and hate that item at the same time.''
       She added, ``It's like the `n' word. African-Americans are 
     very good at turning a painful thing into something else.''
       For David Pilgrim, a sociology professor at Ferris State 
     University in Big Rapids, Mich., however, the issue is 
     starker. ``This is the ugly intersection of money and race,'' 
     he said.
       Mr. Pilgrim, who is black, runs a temporary museum, with 
     5,000 racist objects. Stores, he argued, are not the proper 
     surroundings for a thoughtful discussion of what he calls 
     ``contemptible collectibles.''
       He is trying to raise money to establish a permanent Jim 
     Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia (www.ferris.edu/jimcrow). 
     ``To me,'' said Mr. Pilgrim, whose own collection makes up 
     nearly half of the temporary museum's inventory, ``this stuff 
     is garbage. It belongs either in a museum or a garbage can.''
       Most historians date the Jim Crow era from 1877, when the 
     federal occupation of the South ended, to 1965, when the 
     Civil Rights Act guaranteeing basic rights for black 
     Americans was passed. Jim Crow was an 1820's musical routine 
     performed by white men in blackface, and the term became a 
     synonym for discrimination and segregation. Jim Crow laws 
     passed by Southern legislatures were a way for whites to roll 
     back black gains after the Civil War.
       But Mr. Day of the Swann Galleries said that derogatory 
     objects were made in every state, including New York. ``It is 
     very much blacks through white eyes, not a region's eyes,'' 
     he said.
       Mary Taylor, 68, remembers growing up with mammy dolls and 
     other racially stereotyped objects in Hallandale, Fla., near 
     Fort Lauderdale. ``We resented this stuff,'' said Ms. Taylor, 
     a former administrator at Medgar Evers College. ``It depicted 
     us as ugly.''
       She added that blacks now looked at it differently. ``We 
     look at ourselves differently. A lot of black people don't 
     have that inferiority complex anymore.''
       The Taylors scour garage sales, lawn sales, auctions, flea 
     markets and estate sales in upstate New York, Pennsylvania 
     and Florida for items. ``The smaller the town, the better,'' 
     because they tend to have more of the smaller auctions and 
     estate sales, where prices are still low, the elder Ms. 
     Taylor said.
       Glenda Taylor, a former administrator for nonprofit 
     education groups, said she got the 1920's Klan robe from ``a 
     white collector who got it from an estate sale from someone's 
     attic,'' she said. The Taylors later sold the hood and robe 
     for $1,500 to a collector in Washington State.
       The younger Ms. Taylor likens her shop, named after a 
     favorite aunt, to a time machine. Older black customers, 
     prompted by the memorabilia, like to reminisce, she said.
       A black man in his 60's, looking at a ``For Colored Only'' 
     reproduction in the shop, remembered the time when as a 
     college student he had lunch in a Louisiana coffee shop. As 
     he left, the white owner broke every dish he had used.
       The next day, the black man, a drum major at nearby 
     Grambling State University, brought the entire football 
     team--all blacks--for lunch. They watched in satisfaction as 
     the shaken white owner broke dozens of his dishes.
       ``If any type of shop like this should be, it should be 
     here in Harlem,'' the elder Ms. Taylor said. ``There should 
     be a black museum. I would prefer that, if we had the 
     money.''

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