It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. That began to chip away at their ideology because when two enemies are talking, they're not fighting. Just like any good salesman, you want a return visit and they recognized that I'd done my homework, which allowed me to come back again.Ĭode Switch Tracing The Dark Origins Of Charlottesville's KKK Whether they like you or not, they respect the fact that you've done your homework. When they see that you know about their organization, their belief system, they respect you. I knew as much about the Klan, if not more than many of the Klan people that I interviewed. I went in armed, not with a weapon, but with knowledge. The best thing you do is you study up on the subject as much as you can. I decided to go around the country and sit down with Klan leaders and Klan members to find out: How can you hate me when you don't even know me? That was the impetus for me to write a book. So what do you do when you plant a seed? You nourish it. The fact that a Klansman and black person could sit down at the same table and enjoy the same music, that was a seed planted. He wanted me to call him and let him know anytime I was to return to this bar with this band.
And now I'm wondering, why am I sitting by a Klansman?īut he was very friendly, it was the music that brought us together. I recognized the logo on there, the Klan symbol and I realized this was for real, this guy wasn't joking. As I was laughing, he pulled out his wallet, flipped through his credit cards and pictures and produced his Klan card and handed it to me. I just burst out laughing because I really did not believe him. On his reaction on hearing he was talking a member of the Klan I said, "How is that? Why?" At first, he didn't answer me and he had a friend sitting next to him and he elbowed him and said, "Tell him, tell him, tell him," and he finally said, "I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan." I'm trying to figure out, now how is it that in my 25 years on the face of this earth that I have sat down, literally, with thousands of white people, had a beverage, a meal, a conversation or anybody else, and this guy is 15 to 20 years older than me and he's never sat down with a black guy before and had a drink. He says they bonded over liking the same type of music. I ain't ever heard no black man except for you play like that." So I'm thinking this guy has never heard Fats Domino or Little Richard and then he says, "You know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man?"ĭaryl Davis first befriended a member of the Ku Klux Klan in a bar where he was performing. Black, blues, and boogie-woogie piano players." That's what that rockabilly, rock 'n roll style came from." He said, "Oh, no! Jerry Lee invented that.
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I was playing music - it was my first time playing in this particular bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge and this white gentleman approached me and he says, "I really enjoy you all's music." I thanked him, shook his hand and he says, "You know this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis." I was kind of surprised that he did not know the origin of that kind of music and I said, "Well, where do you think Jerry Lee Lewis learned how to play that kind of style?" He's like, "Well, I don't know." I said, "He learned it from the same place I did.
On the first time he befriended a member of the Ku Klux Klan
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