Pilgrim spoke with me about his lifelong hobby and what he hopes Americans will see as they wander through his disturbing hall of mirrors.

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz: What made you throw that mammy saltshaker on the ground all those years ago?

David Pilgrim: It would be great if I had a deep, philosophical answer, but on a gut level, I just didn’t like it. In those days, a lot of people, including blacks, had those sorts of objects in their homes, and I hated them. Clearly, they didn’t see them as negative in the same way I did. In any case, I haven’t intentionally broken one since.

Gritz: What made you start collecting objects like those to keep instead of destroy?

Pilgrim: I went to a historically black college, Jarvis Christian College in Texas, and in addition to teaching the usual math and science, our professors would tell us stories of Jim Crow. One day, one of my professors came into the classroom with a chauffeur’s cap. He set the hat down and asked what historical significance it had.

Now, the obvious answer was that blacks were denied many opportunities, and chauffeuring was one of the few jobs open to them. But that was not the right answer. He told us that a lot of professional, middle-class blacks in those days always traveled with a chauffeur’s hat. The reason: If they were driving a nice new car through a small southern town, they didn’t want police officers, or any other whites, to know the car belonged to them.

Listen: How racism kills black Americans

I remember that story so vividly. No object has any meaning other than what we assign to it. But that was an incredible meaning to assign to an object that, on the surface, had little to do with racism.

Gritz: How about the more obviously racist objects, like ashtrays in the shape of black men with giant mouths? What was the intention behind those things?

Pilgrim: You know, when I was younger, I always thought of propaganda as grainy old films or brochures. But an ashtray can be propaganda. In a deliberate way, it can help shape perceptions about a group of people. It can support everyday practices and official policies against those people. If you didn’t want black people to vote, to live in your neighborhood, or to marry outside of their own race, these objects became a way to shape those attitudes. That’s why even an ashtray can have a lot of cultural utility.

Gritz: Were some of these objects created as kitsch?

Pilgrim: I think that played a part. These objects reflect our attitudes as well as shaping them. I’ll give you an analogy. I now collect objects relating to other groups, like women. Sexualized women are often used even when a product has nothing to do with women—even when you really have to stretch to figure out what a naked woman has to do with it.