[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
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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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