Museum of racist memorabilia plans $18.5 million expansion at Ferris State University

The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., is undergoing an $18.5 million expansion to accommodate its ever-growing collection.

MLive.com reports that university officials plan to build a 31,130-square-foot exhibition space to house the museum, which now is housed in the Ferris Library for Information, Technology and Education.

The stand-alone building will be called the Jim Crow Museum, Archive and Research Center. The museum serves to showcase how racist ideas and anti-Black images dominated American culture for decades.

The museum has amassed the nation’s largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement. But the museum, which opened in 2012, has outgrown its space.

Construction of the new facility is scheduled to be completed in 2024.

The architect is Howard+Revis Design.