New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima

David Pilgrim was 12 years old when he bought his first racist object at a flea market: a saltshaker in the shape of a mammy. As a young black boy growing up in Mobile, Alabama, he’d seen similar knickknacks in the homes of friends and neighbors, and he instinctively hated them. As soon as he handed over his money, he threw his purchase to the ground and shattered it into pieces.

Pilgrim’s story brings to mind the young biblical Abraham, smashing idols in his father’s shop. But that mammy was the only racist icon Pilgrim ever destroyed. Today he owns thousands of them: cereal boxes, statuettes, signs, and postcards of black men being whipped and hung. The public will soon be able to see his, which opens April 26 at Ferris State University in Michigan, where Pilgrim spent years as a sociology professor.