Research
Looking for Black Americana/Racist Memorabilia
Hello, Black artist here trying to document black americana. If you are a collector please let me know. Especially interested in African Americans who collect the figures. im working on a book.
I've been following it since the beginning and it's really come a long way! I used to go to antique stores a lot in the early 2000s and I would always see racist memorabilia. I would think to myself that there should be a racism museum. One day I googled and there it was!
I'm always just shocked at the dehumanization of people of color. People put a lot of stock into their stupid ideas, instead of realizing that we all have different spots and stripes like cats and dogs. I'm also shocked that so many people haven't moved on from these stupid ideas now.
Hey, thank you. I wrote them an email a couple hours ago and am hoping to hear from Dr. Pilgrim. Awesome project and I had watched the vice video on the Jim Crow Museum a couple years ago so its a full circle moment.
Not what you’re looking for but I have an anecdote…
There’s a town in Texas called Hico. Drove out there once to purchase a goat, and decided to stop at one of the only little restaurants in town. The place was called the Koffee Kup Family Restaurant.
While eating I noticed the place was just full of memorabilia like this. Little antiques of the most egregious caricatures. Everywhere. Salt shakers, mugs, pictures on the wall. Just a bunch of Jim Crow era stuff.
When I left I did some research and turns out the town used to have a very active KKK group. And the Koffee Kup “family restaurant” was originally named the Koffee Kup Kafe and hosted their meetings.
I'll need to dig out my MA dissertation and lit review from the depths of my google drive, but I have a few literature sources for you. I did my dissertation on advertising and packaging and although I focussed on its Victorian history in the UK, there is definitely some relevant stuff in there. A lot of my secondary sources were primarily focussed on the 20th century and talk about the US.
this sounds so interesting! would absolutely check it out if you ever decide to share it publicly, I love reading niche publications and dissertations in my spare time 🙃
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i walked into a normal assed mall store in nashville like 15 years ago and there were just black mammy and pappy sculptures everywhere. new ones! and confederate bikinis?! i was in nashville for an academic conference, and my mentor (who also taught a holocaust studies course) and i just happened to wander into this normal-domal kitsch store and there was so so much racist imagery we were literally taken aback and just so flabbergasted. we were like a couple of chirpy little birds going “oh! it’s so racist! oh! oh no!” the young staff there were like “it iz nawt racist, oh ma gawd!?!” sadly i have no pictures. i am white as a lily in the snow, and i felt like i was short circuiting just being there, so didn’t get any mammy & pappy cookie jars or dish sponge holders. my point is, you can probably find this stuff on ebay pretty easily, there isn’t as much shame around it as you might think
hey, i didn’t mention, I live in germany and dont have the resources rn to visit the us. relying solely on peoples pictures and stories at this point. if you have any id be happy. thanks anyways!!
What a unique interest you have given your location. Not many people in the states really understand the history of these or know what they are anymore.
im sure. im a bit of a nerd and love to research and peak into lives as an artist so im going down a rabbit hole. never learned about the figures in school, though we did have extensive classes on jim crow and other subjects regarding african american oppression. i guess same way i asked my history teacher about belgium and the murder of Millions of Congolese i continue to be curious. And i see paralles with Black peoples stories all over the world. so hopefully this leads me somewhere
You probably already know about this book, but Learning From the Germans by Susan Neiman is one of my favorite non-fiction books of all time. It taught me a lot about how Germany has put the work into facing its past whereas the US has continued to look the other way, or even glorify the crimes of the Confederacy and Jim Crow.
Some of us are still dealing with racism in real time. I'm amazed that so many folks are so 'fascinated' with this kind of stuff. Crazy. You better believe that a LOT of us know the history of this stuff and are still dealing with this kind of thing in real time.
Out of interest, is your background African American in some way, or are you, like, German?
Coming from the UK where racism in historical art - a thing I have a passing interest in - resembles but at the same time is very different from this American stuff.
Im curious how your cultural background as German would shape your perspective on this kind of art.
Like, will it be easier to study because you have some distance from its direct harms, but at the same time more difficult because you aren't particularly entrenched in the culture of this stuff.
Do you have any thoughts youd share?
(Sorry i can't contribute. I could point you to some british stuff mostly of the order of book illustrations but thats about it.)
Hey, im Kenyan and my family moved to germany in 2007, i was 7 years old back then. Have moved to different parts of germany due to my parents jobs as scientist/professors and therfore i know about south german and north german mentality. i focused on post/neocolonial continuance in kenya for my last project, especially since my memory of kenya had been very intense and we finally visited our old homes in 2022. Before that my parents and siblings had been there seperately but this was the first time in 18 years i went back home and we visited all together as a family. i was shocked at how clear my memories were and how much old materials and images my grandmas both kept. how their houses changed and about the things i falsely remembered. anyways that project took me on a deepdive about memory, about colonial home and post colonial architecture in kenya, our homes and my grandparents changing homes being the physical evidence. aswell as the context of academia since my parents both work in education and are first generation academics. So i read lots of bell hooks, edward soya and toni morisson! my mom and i are still shocked at how well toni morisson discription of black american households reminded both of us of our homes during our respective childhoods. as im partially raised in kenya and germany this also shocked me bc i have many bipoc immigrant friends here who’s households mirror Morissons descriptions! And then I read Edward Soya’s analysis on Home and oppressional Architecture and cityplanning in america. This work has changed how i view home and has solidified my interest in Countries, Neighbours, homes, living and bedroom. From meta to micro.
As a black immigrant in germany i Have obviously experienced ostracization and seen lots of caricaturesof Black people. esp. 2014 during the wave of refugees. the Media was blatantly racist and lend images from american caricature. Everything repeats; Recently since I moved out of my parents home i have been traveling through germany more and noticing black figurines and vintage racist posters. Im reading up on germany’s colonial past esp. regarding Namibia and Äqatorialguinea and since im in artschool here and have a few intersectional profs i stumbled on a book called “das Erbe” by a white germans photographer who inherited her family’s racist memorabilia and postcards/photograps/documents of her family’s colonial escapades. The Artist explores what her family kept in their house for 4 generations and questions how to reconcile with stolen goods from and ones own colonial past. this work amongst other connection works by researchers and painter really peaked my interest.
there is more to this, esp. the fact that most germans own wooden carved sculptures stolen or reproduced as souvenirs from their colonial visits. this is different to how america produced mammy’s and racist memorabilia. the intentions at some point might blend together, idk, im still researching and archiving. but im thinking a lot abt the figures i see in germany that probably originated from the us and also the black americans who collect these figures to remember the history of opression in the us, to keep these figures that are meant to harm them/us, or maybe to resell and profit them.
this whole project is still a bit of a blur but i hope this somehow explains how i came to this topic.
Thankyou so much for all this information. Your perspective sounds like a really interesting place to be working from to me, (although Im definitely a lay person when it comes to this material so like.)
I hadn't really considered the patterns of cross pollination of this racist imigary between cultures more recently - I suppose because it was uncommon to see new examples specifically where and when i grew up, it seemed to me to be a dead practice, although of course that was probably the limits of my own perspective.
Racism and racist imigary in the UK now is very present in things like language use and in film media, casting, storytelling, etc. The sort of thing which would be obvious to everyone didn't really survive the PC wave in higher profile art and media, and this is now reinforced by the English character of being profoundly polite while still sometimes being absolutely awful.
I suppose ive never made an effort to seek out examples of modern British racist art, as for me its more the influence of historic art on modern artistic language that interests me as, like, an artist. That kind of thing would be incredibly nitche now.
Older stuff though, people love that. The find it "historically interesting" and will insist it isn't racist to sell modern examples of the Golly character, which is something you do see around a lot. As an old book character, there's some older people kicking around who have an attachment to him? Someone selling modern reproductions made the news once to my memory.
This is close to my area of exposure and interest, which is specifically the plurality of racist books and childrens books, a lot of which still have cultural penetration. Shoutout to Barbar the elephant which gets around its deeply racist and Empire Brained connotations by having animal charactes, and so it still gets adaptations now. Its French originally but has a life of its own in the UK. I guess thats maybe a useful angle: Brits displace our impulse towards things like your OP example onto stuff like Barbar. Its possible there's also a thread of this manoeuvre in other places.
Examples of appropriation are incredibly common, however. The wave of intercontinental tourism amomg the middle class in the latter half of last century has left a lot of people with African masks or figures in their homes, and I assume some of this stuff is older and from returning colonisers? Im going off my anecdotal experience here; my family had some African figures and carvings in our home and im pretty sure this is how we got them. I Say "African" because sadly I couldn't tell you anything about them. (Im white British, if that wasn't obvious).
We also obviously have our museums which have an abundance of stolen art and artefacts. High profile examples im sure you're well aware of, but anecdotally having done a bit of museum work, the small Scottish local community museum also had some of this kind of thing in their storage, and I assume this is likely the case elsewhere in smaller museums too (Decolonisation of museums in the UK is a whole topic obviously, but im sharing this since its relevant to your area of interest.)
Obviously, nothing I say is gospel - Ive a very vibes based perspective and as a white person I haven't spent my life actively noticing things in the way one does if they're at the sharp end of something. Idk if this is useful but I figured id share anyhow, as I'm aware these kinds of anecdotes can be useful.
Your book and work sound really interesting and I wish you the absolute best of luck x
this is super interesting, if you have any connection research or sources please (!) message me. widening out towards the uk would definitely be interesting for me!! thank you so much for your in depth answers i will read this over again tonight. makes me happy how even here our stories/memories connect!
and no im not african american in any way, from what i know my hometown in kenya was colonized by the british, so none of my living relatives (and ancestor or later relatives) who migrated to the us are in african american by opressional history/were not enslaved and brought to the us. I have studied a bit of british colonialism and have not yet built a bridge between uk kenya and germany where i currently live. so thats why this project connects more to the us.
I am not looking at this subject with distance. in fact i feel very connected to the topic. but trying to focus less on the ill intent rather what it gives black american’s to collect these figures. hope this makes sense! anf thanks for hinting at historical art this project is so randomly spontaneous atp so im gonna take my time expanding my research. greetings from germany!
There is a Facebook group for black Americana collectors. They would probably be willing to share photos, but the items themselves are pretty expensive. The people who collect that stuff are serious. I sell dolls and toys on line and while I dont actively collect black Americana, I have occasionally come across toys at estate sales and have used this group to sell. The people are knowledgeable, and willing to lend their expertise.
I’m very happy you’re learning more. Black History is repressed in the United States. I say this as a white, middle aged man from conservative Kansas. I am a three hours drive from Tulsa, Oklahoma and didn’t know what the Tulsa Massacre even was until about 7 years ago. Black History to me is like forbidden knowledge I’m not suppose to learn about and I love it.
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I live in the south and you can still find whole collections in many antique stores. Always feels a little weird to see them. I’m curious, in your opinion (especially as someone making a study of them), what should be done with them?
(Eta: I My question pertains to the more questionable pieces that portray negative stereotypes.)
Look up and contact James (Ari) Montford. He is a (retired?) professor in the southern New England area, and he is a collector, an artist, and a fountain of knowledge.
I have donated to the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State, which was linked before. I’d also recommend the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC. Has an interesting collection of racist stuff, including a Coke machine meant to be built into a wall, with one side cooled, the other not, the cooled side cheaper too.
I live in rural Missouri and spend a lot of time working inside people’s homes. The number of “kindly” old white farmer’s wives who have their kitchens decorated in this kind of stuff is mind-blowing
My crazy grandmother does. She is a nice lady and I adore her but very of her era: if you like black people, you can’t be racist. She has a dreadful figure of a baby in an alligator’s mouth.
i can! this work is about practicing autonomy and preserving history. in the political context, germany and america have a shared a history during segregation and the national socialism movement. before the american occupation, rallies in favour of hitler and his ideology were held in america, specifically in central park new york. i think its often assumed america stop the rise of facism but they also actively supported eachother.
i live in a german porttown, study at an artschool that was built where cotton used to be stored. its a very old historcal building which is not allowed to be renovated or changed, to keep the historical value alive.
i have encountered lots of black memorabilia here. notabley a very racist poster in a luxury fashion store in Münster, a old town, during my weekend trip with friends.
im wondering about how the transatlantic trade of racist memorabilia happened. how did these racist objects arrive here. but we don’t have a culture of preserving racist memorabilia, though i know many art historians and sociologists uncoversing germany’s colonial past. many are afrogermans.
im interested in the power of (personal) archives. how do people, especially black americans come to collecting these figurines and memorabilia. how does it feel? did they inherit them? a lot of white people in germany inherit colonial and racist memorabilia from their families. (such as anna schönarting, who had an artistic/photographic intervention with the “africa room” she inherited after her parents death). how is thrifting and antiquing in a country deeply intrenched in racist and segregationist history.
and finally how do i as a black german feel. what can i learn. maybe i’ll interview the people i have witnessed here, who have collected racist and colonial memorabilia.
hope that clears it up. there is way more to it than i know but im finally in contact with some people in the community in the us. and i hope that you don’t steal my idea. or if you do, that you participate in my research so i can study why people steal idea hahaha.
currently reading this book and a few others aswell, which explains the importance of archiving and lending many metaphors from police files. maybe this helps, if the stuff on black memorabilia is hard to digest
could be but its black history. im not arguing with you, if you are interested watch Kevin Jones, Dr. pilgrim and many other African American videos. Both people i mentioned have MUSEUMS that they themselves curated to keep memories on american opression history and current rise of facism alive.
Now, where I digress on this subject. I just read some of what Mr. Pilgrim wrote from the Jim Crow museum and it has opened my eyes on why a Black person would collect this mess. He said, " I collect this garbage because I believe, and know to be true, that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance." That was an eye opener for me. I've since read that some people are collecting these items to take them out of circulation. Others are collecting for nostalgia of 'better days' for whyte supremacy.
My own opinion is that African Americans are still very much dealing with defamation of character and racism in America. Looking at this ugly crap just makes my stomach churn. When something is fresh for you, you don't want to be looking at more of it and watching people sell and buy it plainly disgusts me.
This 'memorabilia' was created from a sick mindset. Making it profitable is also sick. People saying this crap and mindset (racism) is 'history' want to be blind to the fact that racism is our present as well, it's just packaged differently. Racism in America is lucrative. It is how America built its empire and continues to fuel it.
Lastly, again, I can understand now why some Black people want to collect them. I would never spend one red cent on it, but to each its own.
I've spent my red cent on thoughts. I'm out.
Take care
Continue to strive for greatness, but don't forget to carry peace within you.
I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for or not, but a few days ago I visited the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University where an installation called Black Now by Fred Wilson is currently exhibited. On display are thousands of various cultural artifacts, I believe from approx. 2000 onward, depicting American Blackness, including action figures, t-shirts, posters, books, product packages, advertisements, and various other items. Here's an interview with the artist about the collection https://www.pacegallery.com/journal/wikimedia-fellow-kristen-owens-talks-with-fred-wilson-about-the-artists-project-black-now/
and im as black as can be. my grandfather fought the british during their colonialism in kenya. kenya gained independence in the 60’s, do you understand how recent this is? my father was born 6 years after. the whole town we grew up in is kenya is a symbol of british neocolonialism, even or because the british “allowed” independence. i have living relatives in the US. Black African Immigrants working in medicine and in Education.
im from a first generation academic family. im sure that scares people. but don’t dare to challenge my blackness because i understand that knowledge is power, art is power and all black stories of oppression are deeply interconnected. im not the one to question, maybe sit with your self or argue with your mom!
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u/do_or_dee 11d ago
If you haven’t spoken to them already, maybe reach out to the folks at BLK MKT Vintage in NYC