A Michigan college basement is home to the nation’s biggest collection of racist objects

David Pilgrim started collecting racist objects when he was a boy of 12 living in Alabama at the tail end of the Jim Crow era. And now, the 64-year-old sociologist's items comprise one of the largest collections of racist memorabilia in the country, housed in a college basement in Michigan. 

His first purchase was a salt shaker shaped like a woman, dark-skinned, in maid's clothes and a headscarf. He smashed it to pieces seconds after buying it. “I don't think it was a philosophical act,” said Pilgrim, now the vp of diversity and inclusion at Ferris State University. “I just didn't like it.”

For years, the objects piled up in odd places, like spare closets and the trunk of Pilgrim's car.