Daryl Davis wondered since childhood why he was a target of white supremacy, and he was so determined to find answers that he slipped into a white robe himself.
On Thursday, he will share his experiences of infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in a Black History Month event sponsored by the Black Student Cultural Programming Board.
Davis said his curiosity of the KKK was heightened when he came face to face with some of its members while on tour with a country music band.
“They were intrigued by a black man playing in a country band,” he said. “And I wanted to ask them some questions — first, how can you hate me when you
don’t even know me?”
So he asked his agent, a white woman, to arrange interviews with leaders of the KKK without telling them that their interviewer would be black.
Davis said they were shocked when they met him for the first time, sometimes at their own homes. Although many refused to speak with him, those who allowed the interview to continue became friends to Davis in the end.
“When you sit down with even your most adversarial opponent, you realize that you have something in common with them,” Davis said. “While I thought I was learning about them, they were learning about me. Over a period of time, some of them ended up quitting.”
That’s when Davis realized something as simple as a conversation could change their minds, though that’s never what he planned to do.
He attended his first Klu Klux Klan rally in 1983 — in robes from members who had left the Klan beforehand — and hasn’t stopped going since. The cross burnings, parades and discussions of preserving the white race have never made him uncomfortable, he said, because he has never been ashamed of who he is.
He documented two decades of rallying, interviewing and exploring the principles of the KKK in a book titled Klan-Destine Relationships and began speaking out about his ongoing quest for understanding.
After reading an article about the KKK in The Post during Black History Month last year, Derrick Holifield, a junior studying English and a member of BSCPB, suggested the group bring Davis to OU.
“We always hear stories about the KKK, but we don’t hear them from someone who had a chance to see what they’re capable of internally,” Holifield said. “I think (Davis) can teach us the mind state that those people are in. Some people have had a chance to live through this and we get to see what they went through.“
Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, associate director for the OU Multicultural Center and advisor for BSCPB, agreed that having Davis share his journey with OU students would be a good way to recognize Black History Month.
“It’s an opportunity to inform the dominant culture of the achievement of this particular group,” she said. “(Davis) can share his understanding of this group that has historically been oppressive. The purpose for me isn’t to relive the Klan, because there’s no secret about what they represent, but it will be interesting to get a black person’s perspective on coming face to face with them.”
Davis said he hopes the speech will better prepare OU students for what they might face in their futures and that the listeners won’t be blind to bigotry, just as he wasn’t when he knocked on the first Klan leader’s door.
“If you know how to effectively communicate, you can gain rapport with anybody,” Davis said. “In college, everyone’s pretty much treated equally, but oftentimes, we aren’t prepared for what happens in the real world. Things aren’t always the way they are on paper. College doesn’t prepare you for that.”
If You Go:
What: Daryl Davis: A Black Man’s Odyssey into the Ku Klux Klan
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Baker University Center Ballroom
Admission: Free
oy311909@ohiou.edu
