Black ‘Image’ Collectibles Draw Variety of Responses

Merdice Ellis was tempted to buy a brass medal that read “KKK Member in Good Standing,” price-tagged $55, but she said it gave her “uncomfortable feelings.” Instead, she purchased a black “Mammy” doll for her daughter and a reproduction of a sketch of black children scrambling over a fence titled, “Last One In’s a Nigger.”

Ellis, who is black, found nothing offensive about her purchases or any of the hundreds of other unusual collectors’ items on sale this weekend at the “Black Memorabilia Extravaganza Sale and Show of the West” at the Pasadena Center Conference Building.

Part of Heritage

“It’s a part of our heritage. It’s something that took place,” Ellis said, explaining her interest in the images and objects that many people find racist and objectionable.

Nearly every black stereotype, from Aunt Jemima to the black railroad porter, was represented in the show, which ends at 5 p.m. today. Expected to attract 1,000 memorabilia collectors over the two days, the show was the first such event on the West Coast, spokeswoman Malinda Saunders said.

The sale was organized by M & J Productions, a Washington, D.C.-based company that sponsored two similar shows on the East Coast last year.

During the first few hours of the show Saturday, it attracted as many white as black collectors. Those who were interviewed had differing reasons for their interest in the curios.

‘Positive Images’

Ron Grayson, 38, of Los Angeles prefers to collect books and photographs that contain “positive images” of black people, which also were available at the show. “I don’t care for the stereotyped stuff,” he said, pointing to a painting that showed a smiling black girl about to take a bite of watermelon.

“That (stereotype) is the kind of stuff we were trying to fight in the ‘60s. They should be in museums,” he said, not in shows turning a profit for private dealers.

But other blacks who attended the show said they were oddly fascinated with the more blatantly racist items.

Renita Pines, 32, an art teacher from Oakland, said she collects mostly “derogatory” black memorabilia. “I like Sambo, Aunt Jemima, porters. For some reason, I’m just attracted to it. I’m just amazed at the things you see, and I overlook the fact (the content) is kind of painful.”

“It’s the same reason you look at a cobra,” said Deanie Snell, 37, of Lakeview Terrace, who said she, too, almost bought the KKK medal. “It’s interesting and scary.”

A Matter of Irony

Saunders says black memorabilia is growing in popularity among collectors. “People are becoming aware of the historical value, and there is such a wide variety of things you can collect, “ she said.

Ironically, black memorabilia did not become desirable until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, Saunders said. “So much of the merchandise was degrading and derogatory. After the act was passed,” she said, “a lot of it became illegal (to manufacture). So it became valuable and highly collectible.”

Among the items for sale were so-called Jim Crow signs that were used to designate “for colored only” areas in public places, cookie jars formed in the shape of a black Mammy, and three-foot-tall figures of a black man holding an ashtray that are called “silent butlers.”

There were also dozens of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Moses salt-and-pepper sets, vintage black Valentines and loads of black-faced rag dolls.

Prices ranged from $10 for some children’s blackface makeup to $800 for a circa-1927 sign taken from the Bureau for Colored Children, a children’s shelter in Philadelphia.

Educational Value

Among the items Heidi Farkash was selling was a sign that read “Colored Women,” priced at $65, that she said was used to designate a black restroom in a restaurant. She said she began collecting black memorabilia 10 years ago when “it occurred to me that it had educational value. Some of the stuff was really racist. I thought it was incredible. So I started looking for more things like it.”

Collector Ron Carr, who is white, has 10,000 items in his black memorabilia collection in Santa Cruz. He said that many of the artifacts on display, such as the Aunt Jemima salt shakers, were created to sell a product and were not considered derogatory at the time they were made. For the most part, he said, the images were used to sell products to whites.

“Black people were seen as cute, as adorable. They were used as a positive image to draw attention to a point. That was the thinking back then, and you have to keep that in mind when you’re looking at all this,” he said.