Let's Find Common Ground - Racism Renounced: A Black Man Talks With White Supremacists. Daryl Davis

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Acclaimed musician and recording artist Daryl Davis has interviewed hundreds of KKK members and other White supremacists and influenced many of them to renounce their racist ideology. We hear his brave and remarkable story. Daryl's personal quest began many years ago, after a concert when he was in a country music band. A card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan praised his piano playing. Daryl recognized that he had an opportunity to ask an important question about racism: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”  Daryl Davis is the author of "Klan-Destine Relationships"— the first book written about the Ku Klux Klan by a Black writer. His work in race relations has been highlighted in speaker series across the country. His documentary film, "Accidental Courtesy", features his process of conversation and understanding to bridge differences and promote racial reconciliation.

What's the best way to improve race relations? For musician Darryl Davis, the answer was to get to know and even befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan. Darryl Davis is black and he's been meeting white supremacists one-on-one for more than 35 years. He's convinced more than 200 members of the KKK to hang up their robes and leave the clan. Everybody wants to be heard. So I would let them get it all out. And then I would explain things to them from my perspective. They would go home and they would think, you know,

what that black guy said was right. But he's black. He's black. But he's right. But he's black. You know, so it he's right, but he's black, you know, so it was a cognitive dissonance thing going on. They had to make up their own mind. Do I continue living a lie or do I believe the truth and turn my life around? This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Miltight. I'm Richard Davies. We share one man's remarkable story.

A claimed musician and recording artist Daryl Davis has travelled the world playing in jazz, R&B, boogie woogie and country bands. He's also been on a personal quest to try and learn the answer to a question that he was first confronted with as a child. How can you hate me when you don't even know me? Daryl has interviewed hundreds of KKK members and other white supremacists. We asked him in the spring of 2020,

how did he convince people who hated blacks like himself to quit the Klan? Well, let's say this. I did not convince them, they convinced themselves. I was simply the impetus for that. I planted the seed and I nourished it and gave them enough reason to think and do some introspection and reconsider their path. And in doing so, they made up their mind to choose another direction.

Take us back. I mean, how did this all start? Well, we have to go back to my childhood for that. But my parents were in the US Foreign Service. So I grew up as an American Embassy brat, traveling all over the world, living in different countries for two years, and then returning home here to the States for a few months, and then being assigned to another country. So back in the early sixties, when I was overseas in elementary school, my classes were filled with kids from all over the world, whoever had an embassy there, all of their kids went to the same school as I did.

So I grew up in what you would call a multicultural environment. And if you were to open the door to my classroom and pop your head in, you would say, this looks like a United Nations of little kids, because that's exactly what it was. Now when I would return home here to my own country, the United States, I would be in either all black schools or black and white schools, meaning they are still segregated or they're newly integrated. And at that time, there was not the amount of diversity that I had overseas, all kinds of different colors and ethnicities, etc.

Like we have today if you walk into a classroom. So I was baffled why people could not get along. It was beyond me. And then you had an incident, didn't you in the Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts? In the Cub Scouts, yeah. I was the only black scout in a parade. And everything was going fine. You know, the sidewalks were lined with nothing but white people. And we reached a point in the parade where I began getting hit with bottles and soda pop cans and rocks.

How old were you? I was 10, I was in fourth grade. And it was not by everybody, just a small group of people mixed in with the crowd standing together, maybe four or five people. I was so naive that when I was getting hit, I thought those people over there did not like the scouts. I had no idea I was getting hit, I thought those people over there did not like the scouts. I had no idea I was a target until my den mother and cub master and troop leader

all came running over and they huddled over me to protect me and escort me out of the danger that I realized I was the only target and I didn't understand it. And they were not explaining it to me. They just kept saying, it'll be OK, it'll be OK, hurry up, move along, move along. And so when I got home that day, my mother and father were cleaning me up and putting band-aids on me and asking me, you know, how did you fall down and get all scraped up? I told them I didn't fall down. I told them precisely what had happened. And for the first time in my life, my parents sat me down and explained racism to me.

And at the age of 10, believe it or not, I had never heard the word racism. I had no reason to. I'd been all over the world and got along with everybody. There was no racism. So I did not believe my parents when they were telling me this, because my 10-year-old brain could not wrap itself around the idea that someone who had never seen me, spoken to me, or knew anything about me, would wanna hurt me for no other reason

than the color of my skin. It made absolutely no sense. And about a month and a half later, Martin Luther King was assassinated that same year in 1968 and I remember I remember the riots and Then I realized my parents had not lied to me this thing called racism does exist But why do people hate each other because of skin color? How can you hate me when you don't even know me? And now for the next 52 years, I've been looking for the answer to that question. And who better to ask than someone who would go so far

as to join an organization whose whole premise has been hating those who don't look like them and who don't believe in what they stand for. So I've been seeking out white supremacists and people like that from various groups, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, etc. You say you've been seeking them out. When was the first time, I mean how did it happen? Was it serendipitous, if you can call it that, that you met someone from the Klan or did you seek to find them? It was serendipitous because I bought a lot of books. I have a vast library starting from when I was a kid on the Ku Klux Klan, on white supremacy,

black supremacy, anti-Semitism, the Nazis in Germany, the neo-Nazis over here. Just trying to learn where does this ideology come from. I know you're not born with it. So where did you get it? Where is it going? How can it be addressed? And none of my books answered it. So I graduated from college with my degree in music.

And I was playing in a band. A country music had made a comeback in this country. So as a full-time musician, you know, if you wanted to work here to play country, and I enjoyed country music. So I joined a country band, the only black guy in the band, and usually the only black guy where we would perform. We were performing in a bar in a town called Frederick, Maryland. And we had just finished playing a set of music. I'm taking a break. And I was walking to go sit down at a table with my band mates when a white gentleman came up behind me and wrapped

his arm around my shoulder. And now this bar was an all-white bar. And I don't mean that black people could not go in. I mean that they did not go in by their own choice because they were not welcome there. So I didn't know anybody in this bar. And I'm wondering, who's touching me? It's not one of my band choice because they were not welcome there. So I didn't know anybody in this bar and I'm wondering, you know, who's touching me? You know, it's not one of my bandmates

because they were all ahead of me. So I turned around and it was this guy. And he said he enjoyed the music. I shook his hand and thanked him. And then he made the remark that he'd never seen a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis before. And I was not offended, but I was kind of surprised because this guy was older than me. And I thought he should, you know, he would have known the black

origin of Jerry Lee Lewis' style of piano playing. Yeah, just for listeners who don't know, I mean, Jerry Lee Lewis' musical inspiration in the 1950s was from African Americans. Absolutely. He got his stuff and listening, he'll tell you himself, he's a very good friend of mine, he told me. You know, he listened to black blues and boogie woogie piano players. And that's where rock and roll and rockabilly came from.

Well, I tried to explain that to this guy and he was incredulous. He did not believe me. Even after I told him, you know, that I know Jerry Lee and he's told me himself, he didn't believe that either. But he was fascinated enough with me that he wanted to buy me a drink. Now, I don't drink alcohol, but I went back to his table and had a cranberry juice. And he took his glass and I clinked my glass and cheered me. And he says, you know, this is the first time I've ever sat down with a black man had a drink. And now I'm

wondering, like like you know You know what's going on here? So I innocently asked myself why and at first he didn't answer me I asked him again and he had a friend sitting next to him who elbowed him and said tell him tell him tell him And I said tell me and he looked back at me just as straight as an arrow and he said I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan Well, I burst out laughing of the Ku Klux Klan. Well, I burst out laughing because now I did not believe him.

Why would a Klan's been coming to me and embrace me and praise my piano abilities and want to buy me a drink? It does not work that way. I'd never read any similar story in any of my Klan books, right? So I'm laughing at him like he's joking. He went inside his pocket, produced his wallet, and handed me his clan membership card. And I recognized the Ku Klux Klan in Sydney, which is a red circle with a white cross and a red

blood drop in the center of the cross. And I stopped laughing. But we had a great conversation, who was very friendly, you know, and he gave me his phone number. And wanted me to call him whenever I was to return to this bar because he wanted to bring his friends, meaning Clansmen and Clanswomen, to see this black guy play piano, like Jerry Lee. And I'd call him every six weeks,

and he'd come and he'd bring planned people. And they would watch me play and on the breaks You know how to go to his table to say hello I would meet some of them some of them would see me coming in get up and scurry off to some of the part of the room You know they want nothing to do with me other than to watch me which was fine but the ones that hung out and were curious I'd meet them and talk with them and I Quit that band shortly thereafter. I lost track of the guy. But then later it dawned on me, Darrell, you know?

There's the answer to your question. It fell right into your lap. There's the serendipity, Ashley, you know? I've been looking for this answer to my question since the age of 10. How can you hate me when you don't even know me? And no book and no one had been able to provide it to me and Here a Klansman falls right into my lap who better to ask and

so I scrambled around around and Found this guy's number. So I say, you know what? I'm gonna write a book on the clan. I'm gonna talk to this guy Get him to hook me up with the leader, and then I'll travel around the country and interview different clan leaders and members and find out the answer to my question, put it all in the book. Were you worried for your safety at all? No, not really, not really. But I think actually what it was is the fact that I had been traveling so much as a child,

and then now as an adult musician performing all over this country and around the world. And no matter how far away I've gone from my own country to the other side of the earth, at the end of the day, I have come to one conclusion that we all are human beings. We all want the same things. Have you been successful? Absolutely, absolutely. There have been over 200 people who have renounced that ideology and left those organizations

or turned their lives around. I have robes and hoods and Nazi flags and all kinds of stuff given to me by active members, you know, who were active when I met them. And now they have, they have renounced that. I'm so curious, what do they say to you when they decide to give up and give you their robes? What do they say?

They say they were wrong. I asked them, you know, during the first interviews, how can you hate me? You know, you don't even know me. All you see is the color of my skin. If somebody sits in front of you and tells you that you're a criminal, that you lack intelligence, that you're lazy and prefer to be on welfare,

you know, would you say that what that person is telling you is offensive? Absolutely, but here's the difference. Am I offended? Absolutely not. Not because what the person is saying is true, but I'm not offended because what the person's saying is a lie.

At the end, when they renounce this, they say, Darryl, you know, I was wrong. You know, I don't have any reason to hate you. You know, because what's happening is, we're having a conversation. They've never done that before. They've had debates, or they've had clashes. Instead of, you know, I would disagree with them, but instead of, you know, clashing with them, I would listen because I'm there to learn. Everybody wants to be heard.

So I would let them get it all out. And then I would explain things to them from my perspective. They would go home and they would think, you know, what that black guy said was right, but he's black, he's black, but he's right, but he's black. You know, so it was a cognitive dissonance thing going on. They had to make up their own mind. Do I continue living a lie

or do I believe the truth and turn my life around? So that's why I say, I planted the seed, I nourished it and they converted or convinced themselves. You said something that I think goes right to the heart of finding common ground, which is the people that you spoke to, the racists who you talked to, had never had a discussion with a black person. They'd only had a debate about black people. Or a confrontation with. Right.

And so how important is conversation, discussions, finding common ground? It is absolutely important. And the common ground is this. What you do is you look for things that you have in common. For example, I know neither one of you to be involved in white supremacist groups, but if I were to ask either one of you, do you believe that we need better education for kids? You would say yes. Do you believe that we need to address the drug problem on the streets? You would say yes. Well, guess what?

They believe the same thing. So now you've got something in common with the Klan. So we may not agree on racial things, but I find things that we have in common. Drugs do not discriminate. They will take anybody out. All right? So you find these things in common and discuss them and let them see because then they begin seeing the humanity in you. When two enemies are talking, conversing, they're not fighting. They're talking. They may be yelling and screaming, perhaps at some points, but at least they're talking. It's when the conversation ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.

Darrell Davis on a repeat edition of Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard and in his interview Darrell mentioned his book, Clandestine, his personal story of encounters with members of the Ku Klux Klan. More of our interview coming up. Our podcast has 280,000 subscribers and it's free. But we need your help to report on new ways of finding common ground. And a new matching fund has been set up

to make your donations go further. It's been established to honor the work, the passion and the extraordinary enthusiasm of Bruce Bond, co-founder of Common Ground Committee. Bruce was a natural mediator and he recognized the importance of focusing on where people could find agreement. He felt that much of what drove disagreement between the two main parties was based on misunderstanding of facts and preconceptions about the beliefs of others. The Common Ground Fund honoring Bruce Bond has been set up in his memory. Learn more at commongroundcommittee.org. You can also text to donate on your phone. Text to 53-555 and type in the letters CGC.

That's 53-555 and CGC. We asked Darrell about Black Lives Matter and the angry protests over police killings of black Americans. How does he see this crisis? We have been addressing this problem the wrong way for decades, all right? Ignorance breeds fear. We fear those things we don't understand.

If we do not keep that fear in check, that fear in turn will escalate. It will grow just like weeds. If you do not keep that hatred in check, that hatred in turn will escalate and breed destruction. So what is the right way to respond to this hatred, this fear? Don't address the hatred. Don't address the fear. Go to the source. When you find out you have bone cancer in your arms, say, you don't put a topical cream on the top of your arm or band-aid, you got to go down to the bone where the cancer is. You've got to go down to the bone where the cancer is. We have to go to the source of the racism, which is ignorance.

And there is a cure for ignorance. That cure is education, education and exposure. And when we feel anger and rage in response to racist violence, what then? What is putting anger out going to do? You know, I'm not saying blow it off by any means. It has to be addressed. But let's take that energy, that anger, and convert it towards something positive that can come out of it, all right?

And that's focusing on curing the cause, ignorance. Have these people got to know one another? Perhaps that would not have happened. Have these people learned a little bit more about humanity, educate them? Maybe that would not have happened. So let's focus on those things. Your work as an educator and teacher,

you haven't just done it here in the US, have you? You've worked in other countries. Can you talk about that? Sure. I've spoken in Israel. I've spoken in Belgium, Germany, Slovakia, and India. And each place has different issues, unlike us. With us is a black and white issue. In India is the caste system, the lighter skin as opposed to the darker skinned people. And in Israel, of course, is the Palestinians and the Jewish people and the Arab people.

Places like Lebanon is the Christians and the Muslims. In Ireland, it's the Christians and the Muslims. In Ireland, it's the Catholics and the Protestants. But again, at the end of the day, it's ignorance. It's coming together, finding that common ground and having those conversations. My favorite quote of all time is by the American author Mark Twain. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Had I not had all that exposure as a child, would I be doing this today? Maybe not. What do you do in your work? Do you go to colleges, to schools? Are you asked to speak at different events? And who asks you? Well, you know, I never thought about that I would ever be a lecturer or someone like that, traveling around the country, talking about this.

I had just done this for my own knowledge, my own satisfaction of finding out how can you hate me, you don't even know me. I put it in a book. My book became the first book written by a black author on the Klan. But who do I speak to? My audiences. Predominantly colleges and universities. I also do corporations like for diversity training, companies. I do civic organizations. I speak at a lot of churches and synagogues. Sometimes police departments. So I give anywhere from 60 to maybe 80 lectures a year all over the world, a lot around this

country. I'm curious, just talking of family. Over the years, what of your own family and friends said to you about your work? What do they think? Well, my friends. Yeah. Do they think you're crazy? Well, they know it.

So, you know, they understand me. But the people who, you know, don't know me and have not had the opportunity, like you all, to interview me or talk with me or hear this interview. Some of them jumped to conclusions and jumped to the wrong conclusion. And I get it, you know, they see a picture of a black man shaking hands with somebody in a robin hood. You know, if I saw that, I'd have a visceral reaction. But me, I would say, what's going on here? And I would read the backstory. Some people don't read the backstory and they draw their own narrative and it's

wrong. You've done this work for many years. Have you convinced others to do this work alongside you? Yes, there have been some who want to do this work, I get emails all the time from people who say, hey, how can I do this? Some follow up on it, some don't. And then of course, there are, you know, those who you call formers. They were former members of these organizations. Some of them come out with me and educate people because they feel that they need to repair the damage that they did when they were in those organizations. What I see a lot in my professional groups that I'm in is younger people of color, so say, 20s to mid 30s, sort of the millennial generation. They have had it with accommodating white people, right? They're like, why should I go out on a limb and do this emotional work

of explaining to a white person what my experience of the world is like? They should be meeting me where I am. I get that question all the time. It's not my job to teach them how to behave. Well, you know what? If they don't learn, then we we're just gonna enable and continue the cycle So our jobs it's all our jobs to educate one another We need we need to get rid of this attitude. I understand the frustration. I understand the impatience You know like you know, how much longer do we have to put up with this? Well, you know what? The Civil War ended in 1865. And we're still going through this stuff.

We're still being held down. And, you know, so how long is it going to take? Well, maybe if we change our approach, because whatever it was we were doing for the last 150 years has not worked. was we were doing for the last 150 years has not worked. So maybe we need to spend the time educating one another. Let's get rid of this concept. I'm not my brother's keeper. Let's become our brother's keeper. And maybe we all can be happy. And what about all of us, no matter what the color of our skin or the place that we come from? What can we do? Our society, our country, can only become one of two things. One, it can become that which we sit back and let it become, or two, it can become that

which we stand up and make it. So we have to ask ourselves the question, do I want to sit back and see what my country becomes? Or do I want to stand up and make my country become what I want to see? And I've chosen the latter. So you have to get into the thick of it. And you cannot get this stuff out of a textbook. You've got to go there and be in the thick of it.

You have to understand empathy and understand where a lot of this is coming from and be willing to rise above all the negativity, all the insults, all the BS. If you spend five minutes, just five minutes with your worst enemy, you will find something in common. And if you spend 10 minutes, you'll find even more. And this is why this is so important. We have to learn how to have, how to have civil discourse. You know, and again, yes, we are going to debate things because we're not going to agree on everything,

but let's not frame it as a debate. Let's frame it as a conversation, because when you say the word debate, people get their wall up, you know, they're ready to, you know, bring it on, kind of thing. Well, you say, Hey, you know, let's just talk about it. You know, you know, how do you feel about this? You know, and then you listen, then you tell how you feel. That's a conversation. You know, you're challenging one another, but when you use the word debate, it has a little more of a aggressive tone to it than just having a conversation on different points of view.

That's a great way to end. Darrell Davis, thanks very much for joining us on Let's Find Common Ground. Well, thank you both very much for having me. I really, really appreciate it. And I think we found some common ground between the three of us. Yeah, I hope we do it again. Darrell Davis on Let's Find Common Ground. Our podcasts are produced for Common Ground Committee. Learn more about the new Common Ground Fund honoring

the life of co-founder Bruce Bond. Go to commongroundcommittee.org. I'm Ashley Melntite. I'm Richard Davies, and thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.