Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's Maya. The best part of making
Speaker 1: this show has been hearing from all of you about
Speaker 1: how these conversations have transformed the way you think about
Speaker 1: your life and have helped you better navigate your slight
Speaker 1: changes of plan. With that in mind, we wanted to
Speaker 1: revisit four of your all time favorite episodes this summer.
Speaker 1: They also happen to be some of my favorites too.
Speaker 1: First up, drum roll please, our first ever episode of
Speaker 1: the show, which features Darryl Davis, a black jazz musician
Speaker 1: whose life took an unexpected turn after a member of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan approached him after one of his concerts.
Speaker 1: When I first conceptualized what this show could even be,
Speaker 1: I had Darryl's story in mind. It took forever for
Speaker 1: me to track him down, and I literally remember jumping
Speaker 1: up and down in my living room when I finally
Speaker 1: heard back. Daryl and I have since become good friends,
Speaker 1: and my husband Jimmy, and I had the amazing opportunity
Speaker 1: to meet him in person for dinner last summer in DC.
Speaker 1: If you're new to the show, this is a great
Speaker 1: episode to start with, and if you aren't, it's a
Speaker 1: great one to revisit. I have felt transformed by it,
Speaker 1: and I often reflect back on the profound insights Darryl
Speaker 1: shared with me.
Speaker 2: So I was riding in my car. I'm driving and
Speaker 2: this clansman was sitting in my passenger seat and we
Speaker 2: got on the topic of a crime, and he made
Speaker 2: the mention that black people are born with a gene
Speaker 2: that makes them violent. And I said, look, I'm as
Speaker 2: black as anybody you've ever seen. I have never done
Speaker 2: a drive by or a car jacking. How do you
Speaker 2: explain that this man did not hesitate one second? He
Speaker 2: answered me instantly, he said, your gene is latent. It
Speaker 2: hasn't come out yet.
Speaker 1: That's Daryl Davis, a blues musician. And yeah, you heard
Speaker 1: him right. He's driving in his car with a member
Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 2: You know, I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's
Speaker 2: sitting next to me with all smug and secure. Let huh,
Speaker 2: you see, you know you have nothing to say. And
Speaker 2: I thought about it for a moment rather than attack him,
Speaker 2: you say it's not true. It's not true. I said
Speaker 2: to him, I said, you know, white people have a
Speaker 2: gene within them that make them serial killers. And he said,
Speaker 2: why would you say that. I said, well, Fayson, name
Speaker 2: me three black serial killers. He thought about it. He
Speaker 2: couldn't name anybody. He couldn't do it. I rattled off
Speaker 2: Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy,
Speaker 2: David berkle with son of Sam Albert de Salvo, the
Speaker 2: boss and strangler. And I said, son, you are a
Speaker 2: serial killer. And he said, Darryl, I've never killed anybody.
Speaker 2: I said, you're Gina's latent hasn't come out yet. He said, well,
Speaker 2: that's stupid. And I said, well, dug, it is stupid.
Speaker 2: And he got very, very quiet, and I could tell
Speaker 2: that the gears in his head were spinning super fast,
Speaker 2: burning a hole in there. And then he a moment
Speaker 2: later he changed the subject. But within five months this
Speaker 2: guy quit the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: Since that car ride thirty years ago, Darryl Davis has
Speaker 1: gone on to convince dozens of people to leave the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone else to change their mind
Speaker 1: their view of reality is one of the most elusive,
Speaker 1: coveted types of change, which is why Darryl's story feels
Speaker 1: so improbable, So how does he do it? I'm Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: As a cognitive scientist, I've always been fascinated by how
Speaker 1: we change our minds and why we change our minds.
Speaker 1: On this show, I'll have intimate conversations with people who've
Speaker 1: navigated extraordinary change, and hopefully their stories will get us
Speaker 1: to think differently about change in our own lives. This
Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans. Daryl didn't set out
Speaker 1: to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused on
Speaker 1: his music. But one night his life took an unexpected
Speaker 1: turn when he was playing a show at a bar
Speaker 1: called the Silver Dollar Lounge.
Speaker 2: The silver Dollar Lounge at the time was an all
Speaker 2: white lounge, and I say that not meaning that black
Speaker 2: people could not go in, but meaning that they did
Speaker 2: not go in by their own choice because they were
Speaker 2: not welcome there. And when you go somewhere where you're
Speaker 2: not welcome and alcohol is being served, sometimes it is
Speaker 2: not made for a good combination, especially when you're outnumbered.
Speaker 2: So we took a break after the first set, and
Speaker 2: I was walking across the dance floor to go sit,
Speaker 2: you know, with the bandmates, when somebody approached me from
Speaker 2: behind and put their arm around my shoulder. Now I
Speaker 2: don't know anybody in this place, so I'm turning around
Speaker 2: to see who's touching me. And it was this gentleman,
Speaker 2: maybe fifteen eighteen years older than me. And he's all excited.
Speaker 2: He says, man, I shore like you're a piano playing.
Speaker 2: This is the first time I ever heard a black
Speaker 2: man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. And I told him,
Speaker 2: I said, well, Jerry Lee got it from the same
Speaker 2: place I did, from black blues and boogie woogie piano players.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, I never heard no black
Speaker 2: man play like that except for you. Jerry Lee invented
Speaker 2: that style. I said, look, I know Jerry Lee Lewis.
Speaker 2: He's a good friend of mine. He's told me himself
Speaker 2: where he'd learn how to play. The guy didn't buy
Speaker 2: that either, but he was so fascinated with me that
Speaker 2: he wanted me to come back to his table. He's
Speaker 2: going to buy me a drink. So I don't drink,
Speaker 2: but I agreed to have a cranberry juice. He bought it,
Speaker 2: paid the waitress, and then he took his glass and
Speaker 2: he clinked my glass and cheered me, and then he announces,
Speaker 2: you know, this is the first time I ever sat
Speaker 2: down with a black man and had a drink, so
Speaker 2: innocently I asked him why, and he didn't answer me
Speaker 2: at first. I asked him again, and his buddy sitting
Speaker 2: next to him elbowed him and said tell him, tell him,
Speaker 2: And the guy looked at me and said, I'm a
Speaker 2: member of the Ku Klux Plan. Well, I burst out
Speaker 2: laughing at him because now I did not believe him.
Speaker 2: I thought he was pulling the joke on me. I'm laughing.
Speaker 2: He goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet, flips
Speaker 2: through it, and hands me his clan membership card. Recognize
Speaker 2: the Plan insignia, which is a red circle with a
Speaker 2: white cross and a red blood drop in the center
Speaker 2: of the cross, And I'm thinking to myself, oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: you know this is for real. So I stopped laughing.
Speaker 2: But he was, you know, very friendly and very appreciative
Speaker 2: of my music and all excited. He gave me his
Speaker 2: phone number to you know, to call him whenever I
Speaker 2: was to return to this bar with this band, and
Speaker 2: so I'd call him every six weeks and say, hey, man,
Speaker 2: you know I'm down there at the Silver dollar this weekend,
Speaker 2: come on out.
Speaker 1: You say it so nonchalantly, like so I called the guy.
Speaker 1: It is remarkable that you called this person. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand you know,
Speaker 1: what was going through through your mind at this moment.
Speaker 1: If someone told me that they were in the freaking clan,
Speaker 1: I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd
Speaker 1: probably just flee the scene. And I think this is
Speaker 1: for pretty good reasons.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was questioning myself for a second,
Speaker 2: like what the hell at the my doing sitting here
Speaker 2: with a klansman. But the guy was friendly. He disputed
Speaker 2: the things that I had in mind of the image
Speaker 2: of a typical clansman, and he wanted to share my
Speaker 2: music with some of his fellow clansmen and clans women.
Speaker 2: And they would you get on the dance floor and
Speaker 2: dance to orro on music. You know, they didn't come
Speaker 2: in robes and hoods, right, you know, they came in,
Speaker 2: you know, regular street clothes.
Speaker 1: This goes on for a year, an entire year. Daryl
Speaker 1: would play a gig at this bar, and he would
Speaker 1: invite clan members to watch him play. This is one
Speaker 1: of those things that makes Daryl so unusual. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, a huge part of what makes someone who
Speaker 1: they are is their belief system. And so if we
Speaker 1: share the same taste in music, that's fine, that's great.
Speaker 1: But if I then find out they're a flagrant racist,
Speaker 1: that's going to fully eclipse everything else about them. So
Speaker 1: how does Daryl look past that? He says, it's not
Speaker 1: like that. He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to
Speaker 1: learn from see. Darryl had spent his early childhood overseas
Speaker 1: in a school he describes as a United Nations for
Speaker 1: little kids. Race was always in the background, but when
Speaker 1: he moved back to the States when he was ten,
Speaker 1: he couldn't escape racism, and ever since then he's been
Speaker 1: interested in why people hate.
Speaker 2: I had had an experience at the age of ten
Speaker 2: where some racist people threw rocks and bottles at me
Speaker 2: during a parade in which I was the only black participant,
Speaker 2: and never having had this happen to me before, I
Speaker 2: was perplexed as to why people were doing this, and
Speaker 2: when later my parents explained that it was racism, my
Speaker 2: ten year old brain could not process the idea that
Speaker 2: someone who had never seen me before who had never
Speaker 2: spoken with me and knew nothing about me, would want
Speaker 2: to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than
Speaker 2: the color of my skin. You know, that just did
Speaker 2: not compete with me. Well later, when I realized this
Speaker 2: was true, there are people like that, I formed a
Speaker 2: question in my mind, which was, how can you hate
Speaker 2: me when you don't even know me? And some people
Speaker 2: would just say, well, Darryl, you know that's just the
Speaker 2: way it is. Well, no, it's not just the way
Speaker 2: it is. There has to be a reason behind it.
Speaker 2: Well it's always been that way. That was not good
Speaker 2: enough for me. I want to get to the nucleus
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: So Daryl dedicates himself to answering this question. He devours
Speaker 1: books about race and racism. He reads nearly every book
Speaker 1: that exists on the clan, but he's still unsatisfied, so
Speaker 1: he decides he wants to write his own book about
Speaker 1: the clan.
Speaker 2: All the books written on the clan except for mine,
Speaker 2: have been written by white authors. You know, white authors
Speaker 2: obviously have an easier time getting in contact with the
Speaker 2: Klan and sitting down and not fearing any ramifications or whatever.
Speaker 2: Or they might even join the clan undercover. A Klansman
Speaker 2: would have a different perspective sitting there talking to a
Speaker 2: black person than he would a white person.
Speaker 1: And how do you feel that perspective would have been different.
Speaker 2: Because he's sitting there telling the person that he hates
Speaker 2: why he hates him. So now he's having to face
Speaker 2: me and face those same questions. You know that somebody
Speaker 2: would ask or even different questions that a white interviewer
Speaker 2: journalist would not ask because they don't think of him,
Speaker 2: because they don't feel the things the same things that
Speaker 2: I feel.
Speaker 1: As Darryl starts researching for his book, it suddenly dawns
Speaker 1: on him he already knows someone in the Klan, that
Speaker 1: guy from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes on
Speaker 1: a mission to track him down. It takes a while,
Speaker 1: but eventually he finds the guy's dress.
Speaker 2: And I knocked on the door, you know, unannounced, and
Speaker 2: he opens the door and sees me. He goes, Daryl,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you doing here? And look, he
Speaker 2: looked up and down the hallway to see if I
Speaker 2: brought anybody with me. So it was more him that
Speaker 2: who was intimidated than me. And when he stepped out
Speaker 2: of his apartment, I stepped in, so he turns around,
Speaker 2: comes back in. So now we're standing inside his apartment
Speaker 2: and he says, you know what's going on. You're still playing?
Speaker 2: What's going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still playing. Listen,
Speaker 2: I need to talk to you about the Klan. He says,
Speaker 2: the Klan. I said, yeah. He goes, well, I quit.
Speaker 2: I quit a while back. I said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: where's all your clan stuff? He says, well, they came
Speaker 2: and got it. And I said, what do you mean
Speaker 2: they came and got your robin hood? Don't you own it?
Speaker 2: And he explained to me, when you join the Klan,
Speaker 2: if you have the money to pay for it, you
Speaker 2: can purchase your robin Hood and it's yours to keep forever.
Speaker 2: If you cannot afford it at the time, you can
Speaker 2: still take it home with you, but you put a
Speaker 2: little extra money in every time you pay your dues
Speaker 2: until you pay it off, sort of like Lagway kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: A bizarre financial aid system within the Klan. Love it, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: equal opportunity for everyone. He's racist, right, that's right?
Speaker 2: Okay, absolutely so. Anyway, he said that they came and
Speaker 2: got it, but when they came to get it. He
Speaker 2: could not find the mask, and he has since found
Speaker 2: it and he needed to return it. I said, well,
Speaker 2: can I see it. So he goes down the hallway,
Speaker 2: comes back and hands me the mask, and I said
Speaker 2: to him, I said, do you know Roger Kelly. He says, yeah,
Speaker 2: Roger was my Grand Dragon. I know him. And I said, well, listen,
Speaker 2: I need you to hook me up with mister Kelly.
Speaker 2: I want you to interview him. I'm going to write
Speaker 2: a book on the clan. Now, let me explain how
Speaker 2: the hierarchy of the plan works. You understand these terms.
Speaker 2: We would call a state leader a governor. They call
Speaker 2: that the Grand Dragon, a mayor. That person is known
Speaker 2: as the Exalted Cyclops. Anybody on the great level is yes.
Speaker 1: Sorry, the self importance of these names, this is truly.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but see, that's also what attracts people, because
Speaker 2: you know, they get titles, they feel important. Yes, it's
Speaker 2: a sense of self importance, you know, because they're not
Speaker 2: getting that from the society in which they live. So
Speaker 2: you know, this brotherhood, this gang, if you will, gives
Speaker 2: them those things. So at the time, Roger Kelly was
Speaker 2: the Grand Dragon state leader from Maryland. So I said,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what you need to return this mask?
Speaker 2: Right he said, yeah, I said, give me Roger Kelly's
Speaker 2: phone number and his address, and I'll go and return
Speaker 2: it for you. And he snapped that thing right out
Speaker 2: of my hand and said, in no way. And so
Speaker 2: I begged and plead it with him. Well, he finally
Speaker 2: gave it to me on the condition that I not
Speaker 2: revealed to mister Kelly where I got it. And he
Speaker 2: warned me, he said, Daryl, do not go to Roger
Speaker 2: Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: that's the whole reason why I need to talk to
Speaker 2: mister Kelly. I need to know why would he kill me?
Speaker 2: What is going on in his mind when he sees me.
Speaker 2: I have to understand this.
Speaker 1: You did realize that you might not get the answer
Speaker 1: to the question if in fact the dangerous part happened first, right, true, this.
Speaker 2: Is true, But I was thinking, you know that I
Speaker 2: would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist if you will.
Speaker 1: Well, I am not the eternal optimist. And Daryl's decision
Speaker 1: feels incredibly risky. But anyway, he has a secretary, Mary
Speaker 1: call and schedule the interview, and he gives her one
Speaker 1: important instruction, do not tell.
Speaker 2: Him that I'm black, and see if you would consent
Speaker 2: to sitting down and giving her boss an interview. I
Speaker 2: figured he might pick up in my voice that I'm black,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want him to hang up with the
Speaker 2: phones and am I talking to you? And my whole
Speaker 2: project would have ended before they ever got started.
Speaker 1: Roger Kelly agrees to meet for an interview one evening
Speaker 1: at a nearby motel. Darrel gets to the motel early
Speaker 1: with Mary. He's not sure if Roger will even agree
Speaker 1: to step foot in the room, but if he does,
Speaker 1: Daryl wants to be hospitable. He asked Mary to fill
Speaker 1: up the ice bucket and buy some sodas, and then
Speaker 1: they start arranging the room. There's not much to arrange.
Speaker 1: There's the ice bucket, a table, two chairs, and Daryl's
Speaker 1: canvas bag which has his tape recorder and a Bible.
Speaker 2: The Klan claims to be a Christian organization and they
Speaker 2: claim that the Bible preaches a racial separation. Now, in
Speaker 2: my reading of the Bible, I have never seen anything
Speaker 2: like that in there. So I want to be able
Speaker 2: to pull up my Bible and handed to him and said, here,
Speaker 2: mister Kelly, please show me chapter and verse where it
Speaker 2: says blacks and whites must be separate. So I'm all prepared,
Speaker 2: right right on time, right to the minute. Five point
Speaker 2: fifteen knock, knock, knock on the door. In Walts what
Speaker 2: is known as the Grand Nighthawk. Nighthawk means bodyguard security.
Speaker 2: He's dressed in military camouflage and he has that clan
Speaker 2: patch on his chest on one side, on the other
Speaker 2: side of his chest or the initials KKK and embroidered
Speaker 2: on his cap. It said Knights of the ku Klux Klan,
Speaker 2: and on his hip. He had a semi automatic handgun
Speaker 2: in a holster. He comes in, mister Kelly is walking
Speaker 2: directly behind him, carrying a briefcase in a dark blue
Speaker 2: suit and tie. And the Nighthawk turned the corner and
Speaker 2: saw me and just froze in his trap. So mister
Speaker 2: Kelly slammed into his back and knocked this guy forward.
Speaker 2: And now that they both are stumbling around trying to
Speaker 2: regain their balance, and they're like looking all around the
Speaker 2: room like, uh, something's not right here. And I'm just
Speaker 2: sitting at the table looking at their faces, and I
Speaker 2: could read their faces like a billboard. Their faces were
Speaker 2: saying to me, did the desk clerk give us the
Speaker 2: wrong room number? Do we misunderstand something? Or is this
Speaker 2: an ambush? So, you know, I saw the apprehension, and
Speaker 2: so I stood up and I displayed both of my
Speaker 2: palms to show I had nothing in my hands, and
Speaker 2: I walked forward. I extended my right hand and I said, hi,
Speaker 2: mister Kelly, I'm Darryl Davis.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with a slight change of plants.
Speaker 1: You're listening to a slight change of plans. I'm Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: So there they are, Roger Kelly, the Grand Dragon of
Speaker 1: the Klan, face to face with Darryl Davis. Daryl reaches
Speaker 1: out to shake Roger's hand and Roger shakes his hand back.
Speaker 1: It seems like the interview is going to happen, but
Speaker 1: before he can dive in with his first question, Roger
Speaker 1: asked to see Daryl's ID. So Daryl hands in his
Speaker 1: driver's license and.
Speaker 2: Then he looks at it and he says, oh, you
Speaker 2: live on such and such street. And so now I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: why is this man reading my address? You know? Is
Speaker 2: he going to come burn across at my house or
Speaker 2: you know what. So that had me a little concerned,
Speaker 2: but I didn't want to let him know that he
Speaker 2: had rattled me a little bit, and so I said
Speaker 2: to him, I said, yes, mister Kelly, that is where
Speaker 2: I live and you live at and I named his
Speaker 2: house number and his street.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good mic drop line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, if you come visit me, I'm
Speaker 2: going to come visit you. So you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: better that we just confine all this visiting to this
Speaker 2: motel room. So anyway, we started with this interview. That's cool.
Speaker 1: This is the actual cassette tape from the meeting.
Speaker 2: Okay, first, what got you interested in the qklux Klan.
Speaker 2: I was always interest as a kid. You know, when
Speaker 2: I was going to school, I was interest. I was
Speaker 2: fast native by the Rachel was the rogues across burning
Speaker 2: and things like him. Hey, and did you have a family
Speaker 2: in the plant? Was like a friend introduced to the
Speaker 2: kond grandmother plan years ago. You know. We began talking
Speaker 2: and every time my cassette would run out of tape,
Speaker 2: I'd reach down into my bag to get a fresh cassette.
Speaker 2: Or if mister Kelly tried to make some biblical point.
Speaker 2: I'd reach down in my bag and pull out the Bible.
Speaker 2: The nighthawk was standing to mister Kelly's right at full attention,
Speaker 2: and every time I reached down, the nighthawk reached up
Speaker 2: to his gun. Well after about an hour or so,
Speaker 2: the bodyguard relaxed. He realized there was no threat in
Speaker 2: the bag, and I went in and out of the bag.
Speaker 2: He didn't move. A little over an hour into this,
Speaker 2: mister Kelly and I were just have, you know, casual conversation,
Speaker 2: and there was a quick, short noise that occurred out
Speaker 2: of nowhere. It sounded like this, And because it came
Speaker 2: out of nowhere suddenly, and it was so fast and
Speaker 2: so short, my ear could not discern it. So I
Speaker 2: perceived it to be a threatening noise. I knew that
Speaker 2: mister Kelly had made this noise. How did I know that?
Speaker 2: Because I didn't make it, and I feared for my life.
Speaker 2: I'm not armed, My secretary is not armed. The only
Speaker 2: person who I know for sure is armed is the nighthawk.
Speaker 2: I can see his gun on his hip. I don't
Speaker 2: know if mister Kelly Carey as went up under his
Speaker 2: suit jacket or not. All I know is, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to die. I'm looking right into mister
Speaker 2: Kelly's eyes. I mean, I'm just like inches away from him,
Speaker 2: and his eyes were fixated on mine. Mine were fixated
Speaker 2: on his. Neither one of us said a word. My
Speaker 2: eyes were saying to him, what did you just do?
Speaker 2: And I realized his eyes were saying to me, what
Speaker 2: did you just do? And the nighthawk was looking back
Speaker 2: and forth between both of us, like, what did either
Speaker 2: one of y'all just do? Well. Mary was sitting to
Speaker 2: my left on top of the dresser because there were
Speaker 2: no more chairs in the room, and she realized what
Speaker 2: had happened, and she began explaining it to us. When
Speaker 2: it happened again, the ice in the ice bucket had
Speaker 2: begun melting, and the cans of soda pop were shifting
Speaker 2: down the ice.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then, of course when she explained it and it
Speaker 2: happened again, you know, we all began laughing. We all
Speaker 2: began laughing at the same thing. Everybody in that room
Speaker 2: became human in that moment. We all feared, We all
Speaker 2: feared each other. Somebody could have gotten shot over an
Speaker 2: ice cube. All right, Just think about that for a second.
Speaker 1: After this interview, Daryl and Roger keep in touch. Daryl
Speaker 1: is still curious about Roger's perspective and how it might
Speaker 1: answer the question Daryl's been asking for decades, how can
Speaker 1: you hate me if you don't even know me? And
Speaker 1: now the two weren't actually getting to know each other.
Speaker 1: Was there a point where you thought, hey, wait a second,
Speaker 1: I might actually be able to get this Roger Kelly
Speaker 1: guy to change his mind about this.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, Maya. I never set out to change anybody,
Speaker 2: not the first time, by any means, because you know,
Speaker 2: I never expected anybody to change. All I wanted to
Speaker 2: know was how can you hate me when you don't
Speaker 2: even know me? That's all I want to know. And
Speaker 2: I never expected to see these people again. But when
Speaker 2: you're sitting there, one on one with somebody, it's hard
Speaker 2: to hate them. That's a human being. It's hard to
Speaker 2: hate them, and it's hard for them to hate you,
Speaker 2: even though they may try.
Speaker 1: Was there something specific that he did or that he
Speaker 1: said where you saw that there was an inn Yeah.
Speaker 2: I began noticing changes in his behavior, in his language.
Speaker 2: He'd been to my house. His bodyguard would come with
Speaker 2: him initially, and we would have lunch or dinner at
Speaker 2: my table. I never got invited to his house, But
Speaker 2: then when he became Imperial Wizard, he began inviting me
Speaker 2: to his house. And already he was coming down to
Speaker 2: my house without without his bodyguard. He trusted me that much.
Speaker 1: This goes on for over five years. Eventually, Roger quits
Speaker 1: the Klan, but he doesn't simply step down and hand
Speaker 1: it over to someone else. He shuts down his entire chapter,
Speaker 1: and he cites his friendship with Daryl as being the
Speaker 1: reason Darryl since inspired over two hundred people to leave
Speaker 1: white supremacist groups. And Darryl's story of changing people's minds
Speaker 1: doesn't end there. He's still doing this kind of work
Speaker 1: today all over the world, and I wanted to dig
Speaker 1: in deeper on his approach. I know you don't like
Speaker 1: saying that you change people's minds, right, You inspire them
Speaker 1: to change their own minds. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: inspiring them to change their own minds, did you have
Speaker 1: to adapt your approach at all when dealing with different
Speaker 1: types of folks?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Because you know, just like if somebody you know
Speaker 2: you're a musician and you play violin, And I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're right handed or left handed.
Speaker 1: Left handed, hey, shout out all the.
Speaker 2: Left these Some people are wired left handed, some people
Speaker 2: are wired right handed. It doesn't make one person better
Speaker 2: than the other. It just happens to be how they
Speaker 2: are wired. Likewise, how we make decisions depends upon how
Speaker 2: we're wired. Some people are wired to make decisions based
Speaker 2: upon their emotions. Others make decisions based upon their logic.
Speaker 2: So first you determine how does somebody decide something. If
Speaker 2: they if they make decisions based upon emotion, then there's
Speaker 2: no way in heck you're going to get to get
Speaker 2: them to see your point if you bring a logical perspective.
Speaker 2: The same thing, if you're dealing with a scientist or
Speaker 2: somebody who deals in data and logic and evidence, don't
Speaker 2: come with an emotional argument. You know, then I ain't
Speaker 2: even going to listen to you. Show them the data,
Speaker 2: show them the stats, the test results. So you know,
Speaker 2: you have to go to where they are. And oftentimes
Speaker 2: we miss that, we don't understand in that because we
Speaker 2: haven't taken the time. I've seen it happen time and
Speaker 2: time again. So a klansman comes into my room to
Speaker 2: be interviewed or whatever we meet. As soon as he
Speaker 2: or she sees me, the wall goes right up. You
Speaker 2: cannot impart any intelligent information to them when their wall
Speaker 2: is up, because when their wall is up, their ears
Speaker 2: are plugged and they're shutting you out. Your mission is
Speaker 2: to bring the wall down. So I'm sitting there two
Speaker 2: feet from the guy, and he's telling me that I'm
Speaker 2: a criminal and that I'm lazy, and that I'm unintelligent,
Speaker 2: basing all of this based on my black skin. So
Speaker 2: when he's done radiating all this vitriol, his wall has
Speaker 2: come down because I haven't pushed back, and he's curious
Speaker 2: as to why I haven't pushed back, because he's so
Speaker 2: accustomed to being pushed back on and so now I've
Speaker 2: thrown him off his game and he wants to know, well,
Speaker 2: how do I feel about it all this? I could
Speaker 2: go on the offense and attack him verbally and say, no,
Speaker 2: you are the criminal. You are the ones hanging black
Speaker 2: men from trees and bombing black churches and dragging black
Speaker 2: men behind pickup trucks, and I would be one hundred
Speaker 2: percent correct. But rather than go on the offense, because
Speaker 2: if I did that, that wall would go right back
Speaker 2: up and he wouldn't hear a word I'm saying. Instead
Speaker 2: of going on the offense, I go on the defense,
Speaker 2: and Maya, here's what happens. He goes home and at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, like we all do, we
Speaker 2: reflect on what transpired during the day before we go
Speaker 2: to bed. He thinks, Man, you know, I had a
Speaker 2: three hour conversation today with a black guy, you know,
Speaker 2: and we didn't come to blows. You know, we might
Speaker 2: have gotten a little loud, but we didn't come to blows.
Speaker 2: And in most cases with me, most people have changed
Speaker 2: their perspectives.
Speaker 1: So I don't think many people in their everyday lives
Speaker 1: are going to be interacting with members of the Klan.
Speaker 1: Obviously that many of us, many lives listeners of this
Speaker 1: podcast do encounter racism and prejudice on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I first heard about your story,
Speaker 1: I thought, Wow, if this man can convince clan members
Speaker 1: to leave, then anything is possible. But it feels like
Speaker 1: maybe things are a little bit more complicated than that, right,
Speaker 1: because in order to get someone to be less racist,
Speaker 1: a necessary step is for them to identify that they
Speaker 1: are in fact being racist, and clan members are already
Speaker 1: brazen and celebratory in their racism. But if you were
Speaker 1: to challenge a mom or a dad who says in private,
Speaker 1: you know that they prefer their daughter not marry a
Speaker 1: black man, they might not be willing to acknowledge this
Speaker 1: prejudice within themselves. And so I'm curious to know what
Speaker 1: advice you'd give to people who are trying to help
Speaker 1: those around them simply acknowledge their own prejudices.
Speaker 2: BIA sending down saying hey, let's let's not have a debate,
Speaker 2: let's have a conversation. For example, just the other day,
Speaker 2: a very good friend of mine his fellow musician, and
Speaker 2: we both like music of the fifties, you know, Elvis, Presley,
Speaker 2: Chuck Berry, all that stuff, And he posted on Facebook,
Speaker 2: I wish we could return to the mindset of the fifties,
Speaker 2: and all these people, you know, gave him a thumbs
Speaker 2: up and likes and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 2: I saw it and I wrote on there, hmm, dot
Speaker 2: dot dot. I said, maybe we should return bring back
Speaker 2: the music, maybe bring back some of the cool cars,
Speaker 2: and definitely some of the low prices, but perhaps not
Speaker 2: the mindset. And see, and that's a whole different perspective.
Speaker 2: You will never hear black people talk about the good
Speaker 2: old days because we didn't have good old days, you know.
Speaker 2: And you know, I loved the music of the fifties.
Speaker 2: But what I want to go back to that era? No,
Speaker 2: because in that era, I would have to be drinking
Speaker 2: from a separate order fountain, riding in the back of
Speaker 2: the bus, not being served in certain restaurants. I don't
Speaker 2: want to go back to that. But see, that didn't
Speaker 2: even occur to him. Why did it not occur to him?
Speaker 2: Because he has white privilege, and you know, it was
Speaker 2: just plain ignorance. So I had to just point it
Speaker 2: out to him. If he wasn't trying to be offensive
Speaker 2: or anything like that, he just didn't know.
Speaker 1: How do you think about the difference between labeling behaviors
Speaker 1: as racist versus people as racist, and how that difference
Speaker 1: in focus might affect people's ability to change.
Speaker 2: You put a label on somebody, they tend to carry it.
Speaker 2: It damages them. And if they have paid their price
Speaker 2: that you know, they've given that up. They should not
Speaker 2: have to wear that label anymore. We need to break
Speaker 2: them from that otherwise what do they have left? How
Speaker 2: do they feel whole? You know, we can't do that
Speaker 2: to people.
Speaker 1: During my time at the Obama White House, when we
Speaker 1: were designing re entry guides for people who are leaving
Speaker 1: prison in we made sure not to use labels like
Speaker 1: ex convicts or ex prisoners and instead use forward looking
Speaker 1: language like community members. And this was based on the
Speaker 1: idea that people often act in ways that strongly align
Speaker 1: with their social identities, and you know, they can often
Speaker 1: feel fixed in those identities.
Speaker 2: Yes, like, if they've paid the price, they have accepted
Speaker 2: responsibility and accountability, then why should we label them that way?
Speaker 2: Label them as to what they are at the time.
Speaker 1: Daryl's now working with the State Department. They send him
Speaker 1: on trips to Israel, India and other countries to talk
Speaker 1: about prejudice and bigotry and how to tackle the deep
Speaker 1: inequities of race, class, and caste. He also gives dozens
Speaker 1: of lectures a year at universities.
Speaker 2: And I'll, you know, at the end of the lecture,
Speaker 2: I'll do a Q and A There'll be some students
Speaker 2: standing off in the distance, not doing anything, just kind
Speaker 2: of milling around. When the crowd dissipates and goes away
Speaker 2: from the podium, he or she will then approach me
Speaker 2: and they'll like, look around, make sure nobody's with an earshot,
Speaker 2: and they'll say, oh, you know, I enjoyed your lecture,
Speaker 2: mister Davis. You know I was raised that way. My
Speaker 2: mother is in the Klan, or my father's a neo Nazi.
Speaker 2: You know, this is how I grew up. But now
Speaker 2: I'm here at University of whatever and my boyfriend is
Speaker 2: Jewish or my girlfriend is black, and I can't bring
Speaker 2: I can't bring that person home. My parents will kill
Speaker 2: me or you know, or they'll disown me. And how
Speaker 2: do they go home and tell their parents that their
Speaker 2: parents were wrong? You know, their parents wanted them to
Speaker 2: go and get an education, but they didn't want them
Speaker 2: to get that education. So they've got this secret burning
Speaker 2: on their chest. You know, that just has to come out.
Speaker 2: And I'm one of the perfect persons, you know that
Speaker 2: they can talk to about it, and I'll sit down
Speaker 2: and talk with them and you know, give them some
Speaker 2: advice and things like that and try to smooth things
Speaker 2: out for them, you know, help them out. You know,
Speaker 2: I get a lot of those kinds of emails, guys.
Speaker 2: You know, want me to talk to their brother, or
Speaker 2: some kid wants me to talk to their parents, or
Speaker 2: some wife wants me to talk to her husband. We
Speaker 2: need something like, you know, a race anonymous kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm planning on having a museum one day. In
Speaker 2: my museum, I'm going to have a component for people
Speaker 2: to come and talk about, you know, racist spouses or
Speaker 2: racist parents, or racist siblings or something like that, so
Speaker 2: there will be an outlet for them and hopefully, hopefully
Speaker 2: that can be replicated around the country.
Speaker 1: We spent so much of this interview talking about how
Speaker 1: you inspire change in others, and I'm wondering how this
Speaker 1: whole experience changed you.
Speaker 2: I just thought I'd meet these people, get my information,
Speaker 2: write my book, and be done, never see them again.
Speaker 2: What you and I and everybody else has heard as
Speaker 2: children is this. A tiger does not change of stripes,
Speaker 2: a leopard does not change his spots. So why would
Speaker 2: we think that a clan and would change his ideology?
Speaker 2: You know, people are who they are. But when somebody
Speaker 2: started changing, and then it happened again and again and again,
Speaker 2: I realized I was onto something. So what can be
Speaker 2: learned can also be unlearned. I cannot stop doing this work.
Speaker 2: So I'm making just as much time between my music
Speaker 2: and doing this kind of work because I love my
Speaker 2: country and I want to see it improve. We spend
Speaker 2: too much time in this country talking about the other person,
Speaker 2: talking at the other person, and talking past the other person.
Speaker 2: I prefer to talk with the other person, and that
Speaker 2: has been the key to my success.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed my
Speaker 1: conversation with Darryl, I'd recommend you listen to an episode
Speaker 1: of the show featuring Megan Phelps roper. Megan was born
Speaker 1: into the Westboro Baptist Church, a religious cult that is
Speaker 1: known as one of the most rabid hate groups in America.
Speaker 1: She was a true believer in one of the church's
Speaker 1: most vocal advocates until one day she changed her mind.
Speaker 1: We'll link to the episode in the show notes. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is created and executive producer by
Speaker 1: me Maya Schunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and
Speaker 1: Julia Goodman, Executive producers Meia Lavelle and Justin Lange, Senior
Speaker 1: editor Jen Guera and sound design and mixed engineers Ben
Speaker 1: Holliday and Jason Gambrell. Thanks also to Louis Scara who
Speaker 1: wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange
Speaker 1: the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course
Speaker 1: a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. So, Daryl,
Speaker 1: one of the things that really captivated me on a
Speaker 1: personal level about your story is that you are a musician.
Speaker 1: I was also a musician in the younger part of
Speaker 1: my life, and I studied classical violin.
Speaker 2: Okay, if I have to correct you on something you
Speaker 2: said that you were a musician, let me tell you something.
Speaker 2: Was a musician, always a musician. So you're still a musician.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. Thank you. I think my technique
Speaker 1: would violate that assumption, but I think in my heart
Speaker 1: I am a musician. I'll give you that