Albuquerque Museum Announces Powerful Traveling Exhibition Overcoming Hateful Things: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery

Albuquerque Museum is pleased to present Overcoming Hateful Things: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery, a traveling exhibition from the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University.

This exhibit explores the Jim Crow system, the African American experience through the Jim Crow era, and the legacies of the Jim Crow system in modern society. Most importantly, the exhibit shows the ways African Americans resisted against racial injustice. 

Overcoming Hateful Things, which places objects in their proper historical context, seeks to cultivate understanding and empathy for victims of racial intolerance throughout history to the modern day. Visitors will understand the need to guard against the dehumanizing characterizations of others, so they do not become further culturally entrenched. This exhibition confronts race, race relations, and racial inequality issues while providing an important form of outreach for the Jim Crow Museum to further its mission and impact across the US and internationally.

“The Jim Crow Museum is committed to the triumph of dialogue. When hearts and heads meet through honest, courageous dialogue, especially about difficult, even painful, topics, the possibility for lasting change emerges,” Jim Crow Museum Founder and Director Dr. David Pilgrim said.

The exhibition will be on view at Albuquerque Museum beginning November 7, 2026 until April 11, 2027. Visitors will view 151 historic items of material culture from the late 19th century to the present, embodying the terrible effects of the Jim Crow legacy. Programming includes a free opening weekend talk with Dr. Pilgrim at 2 p.m. on November 7 and a community-focused panel discussion planned for early next year.

As the US celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, this exhibition reminds us why history is important. In New Mexico, the African American community has made steady and significant gains since the arrival of Estevanico, the first non-Native person and person of African heritage to enter into what is now New Mexico in 1539. Over the past 487 years throughout the state, the community has opened small businesses, founded settlements, established places of worship, and has given back to their neighbors. 

“Museums help us understand the world around us, including the parts of history that are difficult to confront," said Mayor Keller. “By bringing this exhibition to Albuquerque, we’re creating opportunities to learn and have meaningful conversations as a community.”

Despite these contributions, African Americans have experienced racism and violence in all its forms, from the inability to buy homes to suffering actual physical attacks; these are universal experiences in New Mexico and throughout the country. Overcoming Hateful Things demonstrates that discrimination and violence on African Americans is not limited to geographic region, and in fact, will help visitors confront their own relationship with seemingly innocent images of popular culture. 

“Albuquerque Museum is engaging with community members and organizations dedicated to upholding civil rights for all our residents,” said Albuquerque Museum Director Andrew Connors. “This exhibition provides a platform for difficult conversations with people who have actively participated in that fight for justice and continue to do so.” 

“The Jim Crow Museum is not merely an archive of our history – it is an educational experience as well as a reminder that racial injustice persists even now. Ferris State University is incredibly proud of the work that Dr. Pilgrim and the JCM have done to create critical conversations around race,” said President of Ferris State University Dr. Bill Pink. "The addition of the Overcoming Hateful Things traveling exhibit offers the opportunity for a growing number of individuals to bear witness to the African American experience through the Jim Crow era and beyond. It is exactly this kind of expansion of awareness that leads to lasting change.

The permanent Jim Crow Museum, located at Ferris State University, is an anti-racism institution using objects to inform, teach, and create dialogues about race relations. The Jim Crow Museum has been one of this nation’s most crucial anti-racism resources for over two decades. Students, scholars, school board administrators, police officers, civic leaders, politicians, civil rights workers, religious groups, and others have visited the museum to have intelligent conversations about race, race relations, and racism.