Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the
Speaker 1: three of us together. It's movie crush. I mean, stuffy
Speaker 1: should have This does have some stink on it, doesn't
Speaker 1: it some movie stink? I know your game is cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't even ask you have you seen Black Klansman.
Speaker 1: I I was like, I can't. I can't do this
Speaker 1: episode without having seen it. So I watched it last night.
Speaker 1: Oh nice? Yeah good? Huh Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like uh. I like his choice at the end,
Speaker 1: like just completely pull a somersault on the viewer. Oh
Speaker 1: sure with that last bit. Yeah, like spoiler alert pretty yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. We should probably say that out of the gate.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen this yet and you don't want
Speaker 1: it to be spoiled, don't listen this episode first. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess now that we said that, we can speak freely, right, yes, So,
Speaker 1: um the if if the entire movie was basically to
Speaker 1: disarm you up to the end, then I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. In my life.
Speaker 1: And even if it wasn't, that wasn't the entire point
Speaker 1: of the movie. It was still it was still great.
Speaker 1: And how he pulled it out at the end, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: well this was I don't know if you remember, but
Speaker 1: this is the movie I saw in Perth, Australia that
Speaker 1: happens at the end, that big, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: gut punch of realism at the end. And I stood
Speaker 1: up and I was like, hmm, like, I wonder what
Speaker 1: they they're thinking here in Perth. They're probably thinking what
Speaker 1: just happened? What's wrong with America? Yeah, and I'm going
Speaker 1: I might good to see you. I'm not American, I'm Canadian.
Speaker 1: Can't you tail bloke? Oh goodness? Uh yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of slightly embarrassed right now. Like that. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the movie, though I thought to see Spike Lee,
Speaker 1: who am just He's one of my favorite filmmakers in
Speaker 1: his sixties, still just bringing the juice like this. I
Speaker 1: loved it. Yeah. I also loved that it was controversial
Speaker 1: too um and that like some people criticized Spike Lee
Speaker 1: for like not going far enough for maybe kind of
Speaker 1: um glossing over some of the ugly aspects of the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you want to get to that at the end, maybe, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, but we'll we'll give it a pre mentioned
Speaker 1: shout out, which is what we just did. Right, So
Speaker 1: we are talking about the uh, the true story of
Speaker 1: the film Black Klansman, Spike Lea's movie that won the
Speaker 1: Grand Prize at the con Film Festival. It's nominated for
Speaker 1: Academy Awards. Yeah, three Oscars, I believe for including Best Picture, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Picture Director, and Supporting Actor for who I
Speaker 1: would guess Adam Driver. I didn't see. Really. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was surprised because Denzel's son did a wonderful job as well.
Speaker 1: He loves he loves that being known as that, right.
Speaker 1: I can't remember his first name, but you know, Denzel's son.
Speaker 1: He he was um like, there were several times when
Speaker 1: he was talking and I was like, oh, you're definitely
Speaker 1: Denzel Washington's son man, just the way he talked, the
Speaker 1: the sound of his voice. But also is acting too,
Speaker 1: He's a good actor. Yeah, so alright, Best Picture, Best
Speaker 1: Supporting Actor for Adam Driver, Best Director, and Best Original
Speaker 1: Music Score. Oh nice, but yeah, he is. I didn't
Speaker 1: know he was Denzel's son until after the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that. And he was a football player,
Speaker 1: do you know that? I didn't. Who do you play for?
Speaker 1: He played for Morehouse here in Atlanta. He was a
Speaker 1: running back and then played an NFL in the practice
Speaker 1: squad for the RAM and then eventually played a few
Speaker 1: years in NFL Europe and the UFL until he hung
Speaker 1: up his cleats six years ago. Oh that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: playing football in Europe has got to be a surreal experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's a soccer ball and everyone's like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? This is all wrong? All right? So should
Speaker 1: we way back in to the nineteen seventies, the groovy
Speaker 1: seventies of Denver, Colorado. First, first we should say his
Speaker 1: name is John David Washington. You were kidding Denzel's son? Yes,
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's get in the way back machine and see. Uh,
Speaker 1: let go inspect their terrible, low quality pot. So Ron
Speaker 1: Stalworth is the true to life character's name. Who There
Speaker 1: was a football player growing when we were growing up
Speaker 1: named John Stalworth. So I'm always wanting to say John Stalworth,
Speaker 1: this is not him. This is a cop named Ron Stalworth,
Speaker 1: that's right, and he had a few designations that are
Speaker 1: pretty important. He was the first African American police officer
Speaker 1: to work for the Colorado Springs Police Department, which he
Speaker 1: joined as a cadet at the age of nineteen in
Speaker 1: seventy two, and then a couple of years later on
Speaker 1: his twenty one birthday, on his twenty first birthday, that's
Speaker 1: what I saw at June eighteenth. I believe Nice was
Speaker 1: sworn in as a full on officer of the law,
Speaker 1: right And I'm not sure if like they just swear
Speaker 1: you in on your twenty one birthday or if it
Speaker 1: just so happened that the ceremony was on his twenty
Speaker 1: first birthday, But regardless, it was a big deal. He's
Speaker 1: the first African American cop and then later on detective
Speaker 1: for Colorado Springs. So that's that's a big deal, especially
Speaker 1: starting out at age twenty one two. That takes a
Speaker 1: lot of cojones as they call it in Colorado. I
Speaker 1: think they call those rocky Mountain oysters. That's right, that
Speaker 1: is what they call him. So he worked undercover for
Speaker 1: about thirty years um long great careers and undercover detective,
Speaker 1: but it was this case which only came out about
Speaker 1: four years ago when he wrote a book about it
Speaker 1: about his career. Um, when he went under cover as
Speaker 1: a well as a klansman. But it's a little more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. It is. It was a very complicated operation,
Speaker 1: right yeah. And and this wasn't something that like um,
Speaker 1: I mean he even says in this NPR interview that
Speaker 1: he didn't. It was just a job at that particular
Speaker 1: point in time. And when that particular job ended, that
Speaker 1: is the undercover stint, which was about about eight or
Speaker 1: nine months, I moved on to something else and it
Speaker 1: just happened by circumstance. So he didn't come in there
Speaker 1: with a bone to pick with the clan, aside from
Speaker 1: probably every bone to pick that he had with the clan,
Speaker 1: right just as a black man in America. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And I knew it would probably help to give a
Speaker 1: little background on the clan at the time, because you know,
Speaker 1: the clan was very well known for being really big
Speaker 1: and really violent at over. Three waves is basically how
Speaker 1: the clan history is divided. Like the first wave was
Speaker 1: when they were um, they were founded in the wake
Speaker 1: of the Civil War. UM. Then they had the second
Speaker 1: wave came around the nineteen teens, like nineteen fifty fifteen,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, that that era, and then they had
Speaker 1: another big resurgence during the Civil rights are in the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. But you know, in between these waves
Speaker 1: and after that third wave, it's not like the clan
Speaker 1: just went away. They just they kept on going. Their
Speaker 1: profile was lower and maybe there um the public violence
Speaker 1: or terrorism that they were engaging in wasn't quite as pronounced,
Speaker 1: but they were still there. And in Colorado in particular,
Speaker 1: they had a really long history with the clan where
Speaker 1: basically the city of Denver was in the under the
Speaker 1: control of the clan back in the twenties, just you know,
Speaker 1: fifty years before um Ron Stalworth's started working there. Yeah
Speaker 1: he was. He got when he when he got hired there,
Speaker 1: he got access to files like secret FBI files, and
Speaker 1: he got to go in and dig in and look
Speaker 1: at the history of the clan in Colorado, and boy,
Speaker 1: like you ain't kidding, they were in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: There were senators. Both senators were Clans members. The mayor
Speaker 1: Benjamin Stapleton, who the airport was named after, until yeah,
Speaker 1: his great grandson ran for governor um on the GOP
Speaker 1: ticket this past election and lost to who is Colorado's
Speaker 1: first ever openly gay Jewish governor. Wow, Colorado is a
Speaker 1: weird state. It is an odd state for different ideologies
Speaker 1: all packed in together. It's very purple in all sorts
Speaker 1: of ways. Yeah, so, uh, Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a
Speaker 1: clan member. The governor Clarence Morley was a clan member.
Speaker 1: UM a chief of police, which is I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't want anyone in these positions to be clan members,
Speaker 1: but I imagine the chief of police is one of
Speaker 1: the more problematic areas a person in that kind of control,
Speaker 1: particularly that one too. He was basically he was picked
Speaker 1: by the clan, the Colorado Clan um and basically foisted
Speaker 1: on Benjamin Stapleton. Who who Who was even like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this guy's even too much for my tastes, and UM
Speaker 1: eventually fired him. But like the clan picked the chief
Speaker 1: of police of Denver, Colorado back in the twenties. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And they tried to recall Stapleton at one point. It
Speaker 1: didn't work, and when that effort failed, the clan burned
Speaker 1: across on the top of Table Mountain as a celebration,
Speaker 1: a show of public celebration. Right, So the clan has
Speaker 1: deep roots in the old story in Colorado, or at
Speaker 1: least they used to, and they were still very much
Speaker 1: around when um uh, when Ron Stalworth started as his stegationer,
Speaker 1: started as the um, the first black detective in Colorado Springs, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so he started out, I guess is
Speaker 1: kind of playing clothes and was assigned um undercover work
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, just just by his um, just by being
Speaker 1: the only African American UH officer in the police force.
Speaker 1: Because Stokely Carmichael came to town once, that's right, And
Speaker 1: this is in the film. We're gonna talk about a
Speaker 1: few differences between the movie and and the real story.
Speaker 1: But he did, in fact to go to a speech
Speaker 1: and a rally by famous black panther Stokely Carmichael, and
Speaker 1: he was, you know, fully kidded out in his bell
Speaker 1: bottoms and his wearing a wire he picked his afro out,
Speaker 1: and he in fact did make a point to meet him,
Speaker 1: just like he did in the film. And Carmichael did
Speaker 1: apparently say arm yourself and get ready because the revolution
Speaker 1: has come ing. And I imagine Stalworth had some mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about that assignment. Yeah, I guess so. Um, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, I don't really have any idea of
Speaker 1: what he personally was like because the movie mixed things
Speaker 1: up so much and like added layers that weren't necessarily there.
Speaker 1: So I have no idea what what that experience would
Speaker 1: have been like for him, you know. Yeah. One thing
Speaker 1: we do know is not true is the character in
Speaker 1: the film of Patrese, whom he meets at that rally,
Speaker 1: young woman that he falls in love with. She was
Speaker 1: made up for the movie. Spike Lee wanted a a
Speaker 1: love interest basically and to represent sort of the the
Speaker 1: female black power movement as a whole. So she was
Speaker 1: completely made up. But she was terrific in the film. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Laura Harry Or she's in the New Spider Man movies too,
Speaker 1: She's awesome, cool, the New Spider Verse movie No no, no,
Speaker 1: that's animated. Okay, well, she could have been a voice actor,
Speaker 1: I guess right. Yeah. Now she's in then the One,
Speaker 1: the New Ones with the New the New Kid, okay,
Speaker 1: the New Spidy Kid, the Current spider Man, Current Spider Man,
Speaker 1: which is great. Those are good movies. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any of them. You're not super into that stuff. The
Speaker 1: ore you Well, I saw the Infinity War when he
Speaker 1: was in that. I think, Yeah, he's a bit of
Speaker 1: a smart alec. Frankly, he is um so okay. He
Speaker 1: he does his research on the deep roots of the
Speaker 1: clan in Colorado, he goes undercover and then I don't
Speaker 1: think he was even assigned this thing. I think he
Speaker 1: kind of came up with it on his own by chance,
Speaker 1: almost uh, in October night. He was twenty five at
Speaker 1: this point, and he was looking through the local paper.
Speaker 1: Well that was part of his assignment, to gather intelligence
Speaker 1: by reading the paper. Well, right, but I don't think
Speaker 1: I think this was his idea to go undercover like this.
Speaker 1: That's the impression I have to. He seemed like a
Speaker 1: self starter, uh in a lot of ways. So he
Speaker 1: found this ad um classified ad in the paper for
Speaker 1: the clan, UH said get in touch of you aren't
Speaker 1: further information. He sent a letter posing as a white
Speaker 1: racist to a po box, just thinking that he would
Speaker 1: just get back some pamphlets or something. So he signed
Speaker 1: his real name, which is uh. He didn't really think
Speaker 1: that went through. No, he didn't, and he didn't he
Speaker 1: never really fully explained it aside from the best explanation
Speaker 1: I saw is that he didn't think anything was going
Speaker 1: to come of it. He thought he'd get, like you said,
Speaker 1: a couple of pamphlets and that would be that. UM.
Speaker 1: And he just wasn't planning to create like a large
Speaker 1: investigation out of making contact through this this ad. And
Speaker 1: and again we should probably state this. It was an
Speaker 1: ad in the paper for the client to get in
Speaker 1: touch with the clan, to get more info about the
Speaker 1: clan and maybe you might want to join who knows? Um. So,
Speaker 1: so he he makes contact with him by sending off
Speaker 1: a letter. And if you ask me if if if
Speaker 1: Spike Lee were directing this episode, he would put an
Speaker 1: ad break right here. That was good. Who are we
Speaker 1: to disagree? All right, we'll be right back, okay. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, ron Stalworth is thumbing through the newspaper.
Speaker 1: He mails off a letter to get more info about
Speaker 1: the clan, and um he uses his real name, and
Speaker 1: and like like you said, Chuck, he was expecting like
Speaker 1: a pamphlet or something in return, like so you want
Speaker 1: to be a clan member or something like that. Um. Instead,
Speaker 1: about two weeks later he got a call from the number.
Speaker 1: So he used everything as far as the undercover operation
Speaker 1: would go. Um, he used all of his undercover info
Speaker 1: except for his name. So he got a call on
Speaker 1: his undercover phone line from a guy named Ken O'Dell
Speaker 1: And he was pretty surprised to get this call because
Speaker 1: again he was expecting a pamphlet and instead he had
Speaker 1: a real life, living, breathing Ku Klux Klansman on the
Speaker 1: other end of the line saying Hey, I got your
Speaker 1: letter about hating black people and other minorities. Let's talk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like, why are you interested, and Stalworth immediately
Speaker 1: just kind of goes into character. Uh, and I guess
Speaker 1: that's what you You know, when you're undercover, you you
Speaker 1: got to be part improv actor, right to be able
Speaker 1: to pull that off. Well. He also he said he
Speaker 1: drew from his own personal experiences because he grew up
Speaker 1: in El Paso and encountered a lot of racism there
Speaker 1: and I'm sure on the force in Colorado Springs too,
Speaker 1: so he drew from his own experience as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he basically right out of the gate says, well,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, my sister's dating a black man, and
Speaker 1: every time he puts his hands on her, on her
Speaker 1: pure white body. I cringe, and I want to do
Speaker 1: something about it. And Ken O'Dell says, he sounds like
Speaker 1: a great guy. Why once you come on down and
Speaker 1: let's meet, because you are just the kind of uh
Speaker 1: kind of dude we're looking for. You sound like real
Speaker 1: clan material. Yeah. I thought about maybe doing an episode
Speaker 1: on the clan. I thought about the two and then
Speaker 1: I'm like, do you want to give him a platform? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But then I thought, or you know, you could just
Speaker 1: talk about it and how stupid they are? All right?
Speaker 1: Like it when I was a kid. I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: being in Georgia, that stuff was around. I never like
Speaker 1: saw it firsthand, obviously, but you heard things even like
Speaker 1: growing up in the seventies in Georgia, and I was
Speaker 1: always so scared of the whole thing because of the
Speaker 1: outfits and everything and the fire. Uh. And I was
Speaker 1: a good little Baptist boy, so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of fear. But then I got a little older and
Speaker 1: I was like, they're just dumb rednecks wearing sheets, right,
Speaker 1: sort of demystified it. This is the moment you become
Speaker 1: an adult. Yeah, But I mean, of course, then I
Speaker 1: would later learn that they did real horrific things and
Speaker 1: took lives and you know, or a terrorist organization. Right.
Speaker 1: But I think what you're saying is they made themselves
Speaker 1: up to be Boogeyman exactly, and they definitely can be
Speaker 1: that way, especially in the young mind or something like that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, um so, so back to the story. Ron
Speaker 1: Stalworth is on the phone with this guy named Ken
Speaker 1: O'Dell who wants to meet him to see if he'd
Speaker 1: like to join the clan. And this is a big
Speaker 1: problem because I think, as we mentioned a couple of times,
Speaker 1: ron Stalworth was African American. He's like, oh boy, what
Speaker 1: do I do here? Right? So he actually recruited a
Speaker 1: fellow detective who he in his book calls Chuck. That's
Speaker 1: all he's ever publicly referred to the guy as his Chuck.
Speaker 1: Wait was it you, Chuck? It was not me that
Speaker 1: that gentleman is I guess either still undercover or just
Speaker 1: never wanted his identity out there, right, So he yeah,
Speaker 1: he may still live in Colorado Springs. Who knows, maybe
Speaker 1: he's on a case right now for all I know.
Speaker 1: But so this Chuck guy, uh, he's he was recruited
Speaker 1: by Ron Stalwarts, who play Ron Stalworth to the clan.
Speaker 1: Because Chuck was white, he was already an undercover narcotics agent,
Speaker 1: and apparently he was friendly enough with Ron Stalwarts to say, yes,
Speaker 1: I will, I will join this investigation, buddy, let's do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, though, he was, uh, this wasn't
Speaker 1: his like primary case. So Chuck is undercover on a
Speaker 1: lot of different assignments, so he's not around as much
Speaker 1: as Stalworth needs him. So, like in the movie, most
Speaker 1: of this stuff is done over the phone. Like, he
Speaker 1: spends a lot of time in this investigation on the
Speaker 1: phone speaking to these klansmen who think that he's a
Speaker 1: white man, and when they needed to meet, he would
Speaker 1: send Chuck in who uh And we'll get to the
Speaker 1: voice part in a minute. Because that's when I was
Speaker 1: watching the movie. I was like, didn't know that these
Speaker 1: dummies not realize that they don't sound anything alike, right,
Speaker 1: you know, because they've been talking to him on the
Speaker 1: phone at length. Um. But they had their they had
Speaker 1: their first meeting. Um, they got together and I believe
Speaker 1: they met. Um they met somewhere at first and then
Speaker 1: went to a bar after like as the second part
Speaker 1: of that meeting. Yeah, they met at a convenie. So
Speaker 1: the movie is supposedly portrays this realistically, they they this
Speaker 1: Chuck guy, who is portraying ron Stalworth through the clan
Speaker 1: um met They met at a convenience store and he
Speaker 1: was said he was told to get in the car
Speaker 1: and then they drove to a second location, which, man,
Speaker 1: that's scary stuff. And also he's also wearing a wire
Speaker 1: at the time, Like that's something that that the movie
Speaker 1: kind of gets across, but especially like articles about the
Speaker 1: story don't necessarily dive into this. Chuck cat was like
Speaker 1: putting himself out there as every undercover detective does, right. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, ron Stalworth is conducting this investigation, he's the
Speaker 1: mastermind of He's leading this whole thing. But this poor
Speaker 1: Chuck I has to go hang out with these you know,
Speaker 1: violent clans members or clan members on you know what,
Speaker 1: like fairly frequently from what I understand. So hats off
Speaker 1: to him. Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean it was it
Speaker 1: was definitely like it required both of their best efforts
Speaker 1: to get away with this for that long. It was
Speaker 1: quite the ruse. So Chuck meets with them eventually earns
Speaker 1: their trust along with the phone work of Stalworth, and
Speaker 1: then he actually gets um successfully admitted about two months
Speaker 1: later and got his little I guess you get a
Speaker 1: little membership card. He still has it, he does. He
Speaker 1: did not throw it away like in the movie. He
Speaker 1: hasn't framed in fact, and on the back of the
Speaker 1: card where six codes of conduct, one of which said,
Speaker 1: UM never discussed any clan affairs with any plain clothes
Speaker 1: officer on a state, local, or national level. So there
Speaker 1: is a lot of comedy in the movie if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, Um, I mean, it's it's a serious
Speaker 1: thing that they're doing, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: laughs as well, a lot of laughs and a lot
Speaker 1: of like movie formula steps that Spike Lee purposefully follows,
Speaker 1: you know, very faithfully too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um
Speaker 1: there's a big point there that we left out the
Speaker 1: Chuck so to get that membership card supposedly, again, as
Speaker 1: they say in Colorado, the oysters on this guy his
Speaker 1: he had so he met so the fake Um, fake
Speaker 1: Ron Stallworth Chuck met with the clan impressed them enough.
Speaker 1: Between Ron's the real Ron Stalwarts phone calls and Chuck's
Speaker 1: whatever Chuck was saying in in person. All this combined
Speaker 1: made the Colorado Springs Clan members say, okay, we like you,
Speaker 1: we want you to be a member. Fill out this
Speaker 1: application and we'll send it off to them to the
Speaker 1: national director of of Again the clan al we should say.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've ever said that. The clan
Speaker 1: calls itself the organization rather than the clan. So they
Speaker 1: and and the guy who ran the thing, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he still runs it or not, but he
Speaker 1: definitely did at this time during this investigation is a
Speaker 1: guy named David Duke, who if you grew up in
Speaker 1: the eighties or I think even the nineties, you were
Speaker 1: probably pretty familiar with David Duke. I believe he ran
Speaker 1: for president once. Didn't he? I don't know. I mean
Speaker 1: he was, he was. Wasn't he the governor of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I don't. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he ran
Speaker 1: for that. But he was the grand wizard of the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan, and he was trying to make it
Speaker 1: a more political organization. Let's let's have a terrorist organization
Speaker 1: and more of a political organization under his guidance, but
Speaker 1: it was still the Ku Klux Klan Like there was
Speaker 1: still plenty of times when he was wearing robes and
Speaker 1: stuff he just never did in public. So during this
Speaker 1: time he was he was the national director, the Grand
Speaker 1: Wizard of the clan. And when ron Stalworth didn't get
Speaker 1: his application pushed through fast enough, he picked up the phone,
Speaker 1: had called the national headquarters and ended up talking with
Speaker 1: David Duke and saying like, Hey, my application is taking
Speaker 1: a while. Is there anything you can do about it?
Speaker 1: And this kicked off like a what what um ron
Speaker 1: Stalworth would later characterize in a weird way as a
Speaker 1: friendship between him, a black undercover detective in Colorado, and
Speaker 1: David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I don't want to get uh
Speaker 1: angry emails from David Duke's reporters. Uh. He was a
Speaker 1: Republican UM Louisiana State rep. He was not governor UM,
Speaker 1: but I think he ran for some some high off
Speaker 1: he did. He ran, Uh. He was a candidate for
Speaker 1: the Democratic presidential primaries in the late eighties and then
Speaker 1: the Republican primaries in ninety two. He ran as a
Speaker 1: Democrat and then a I could see that solid South
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, And I think he ran for
Speaker 1: state Senate and lost U S Senate and lost US
Speaker 1: House and loss and he did run for governor of
Speaker 1: Louisiana but he lost got okay. And and you maybe
Speaker 1: if you're if you didn't grow up in the eighties,
Speaker 1: you may have heard his name more recently because um,
Speaker 1: he fully endorsed uh Donald Trump's campaign and after Donald
Speaker 1: Trump won he um, this was his quote on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Make no mistake, our people have played a huge role
Speaker 1: in electing Trump. So he was he was in the
Speaker 1: news again more recently. Well, he was also in Charlottesville. Um,
Speaker 1: if not leading the rally to Unite the Right, definitely
Speaker 1: a big speaker at it, a big a big part
Speaker 1: of it. Um. And Spike Lee uses some of his
Speaker 1: footage from that rally. Uh, they kind of get across that,
Speaker 1: you know, this stuff is still going on. This isn't
Speaker 1: from the seventies or or earlier. How great was so
Speaker 1: for Grace? He was wonderful. It was so good. And
Speaker 1: he looks a lot like David Duke of the seventies.
Speaker 1: He really does. Unfortunately for Stash in the three piece
Speaker 1: suits and all that. So you had a good job,
Speaker 1: but so so yeah in the movie Too for Grace,
Speaker 1: from that seventies show, um always he will always be
Speaker 1: from that seventies show he plays um what do you
Speaker 1: want me to say? Like he he had a bit
Speaker 1: part in Oceans eleven or something. Brad Pitt's character was
Speaker 1: teaching him to play poker. I think you know that guy,
Speaker 1: know he's that sevent so so he he plays David
Speaker 1: Duke in the in the movie and there this this is,
Speaker 1: this is it's really funny, like Spike Lee added stuff
Speaker 1: that it's just you you would think like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course it's totally believable, like Chuck being Jewish in
Speaker 1: real life, and he actually wasn't. That's that's fabricated by
Speaker 1: the movie. So you would just not even think twice
Speaker 1: about that. But it turns out that's not true. The
Speaker 1: stuff that seems the least true was actually the stuff
Speaker 1: that actually happened, and for a very long time, at
Speaker 1: the very least. Over the course of this nine month investigation,
Speaker 1: there were multiple phone calls that were very cordial and
Speaker 1: friendly where um ron Stalworth would call David Duke, imposing
Speaker 1: as a White Clam member and pump him from information
Speaker 1: they would talk about, you know, David Duke's family and like,
Speaker 1: just have no normal conversations that would inevitably turn back
Speaker 1: to racism and the um the weakening of the white
Speaker 1: race at the hands of you know, the Jewish media
Speaker 1: and all the minorities who are taking over, and so
Speaker 1: it would it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later,
Speaker 1: I think in the book in an interviews where if
Speaker 1: you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a
Speaker 1: pleasant person to talk to, and that's where that weird
Speaker 1: friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from
Speaker 1: those conversations. But there is exactly but there is at
Speaker 1: least one video of David Duke basically admitting that, yes,
Speaker 1: this he had conversations with this guy. He tries to
Speaker 1: downplay it, but he does basically verify that, yes, that's true,
Speaker 1: that really happened, and probably, like I can't remember every
Speaker 1: phone call I had with every random racist over the years,
Speaker 1: even this guy posing his one um. All right, well
Speaker 1: let's take another break and we're gonna go We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about this weird David Duke
Speaker 1: relationship right after this. Alright, so he's buddying up with
Speaker 1: David Duke on the phone. He's fooling everybody. And he
Speaker 1: even like you get the sense that he does have
Speaker 1: a little bit of sense of humor. Um Stalworth, because
Speaker 1: at one point he even goaded him on the phone
Speaker 1: a little bit. And this is in the movie and
Speaker 1: it was totally true. He's said, you know, Mr Duke,
Speaker 1: have you ever worried about like a black man posing
Speaker 1: as a white man and infiltrating your organization? And Duke
Speaker 1: said no, and he said uh. And this this is
Speaker 1: from the NPR interview with Stalworth. He said, I can
Speaker 1: tell you're white because you don't talk like a black man.
Speaker 1: He said, you talk like a very smart, intellectual white man.
Speaker 1: And I can tell by the way you pronounced certain words.
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, give me an example, and
Speaker 1: he said, black people tend to pronounce the word are aura.
Speaker 1: And I can tell by listening to you that you're
Speaker 1: not black because you do not pronounce that word in
Speaker 1: that manner. It's science case closed. Oh boy, he was
Speaker 1: so easily duped. I love it. Uh. And then they also,
Speaker 1: uh did in fact meet in person. Um, that part
Speaker 1: is true as well. Duke came to town um and
Speaker 1: was having lunch. It was not a big ceremony like
Speaker 1: in the movie, but he came to town to have
Speaker 1: lunch and the department assigned Stalworth to protect him, and
Speaker 1: so he goes there to the restaurant, introduces himself to
Speaker 1: protect him. Duke says, all right, I appreciate you them,
Speaker 1: you know, sending someone my way. And Chuck is undercover
Speaker 1: there as well, and he does, in fact, Stalworth pose
Speaker 1: with David Duke and gets a polaroid with him. So
Speaker 1: this sounded to me like what what was the what
Speaker 1: was going on here? Like, I mean, like, you've got
Speaker 1: this investigation going this is this takes place during this
Speaker 1: this undercover investigation that Stalworth's conducting. You have a guy
Speaker 1: who's already like putting himself out there, Chuck, as as
Speaker 1: the white Ron Stalworth. And then the chief says, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: by the way, Um, you the only African American police
Speaker 1: officer in our entire um squad. You go be David
Speaker 1: Duke's bodyguard for the day while he's in town in
Speaker 1: Colorado Springs. Like that was just bizarre. And not only
Speaker 1: do it, um do that that that very like obvious
Speaker 1: over act slap in the face to David Duke, which
Speaker 1: was great, but if it but it could have jeopardized
Speaker 1: like this whole, this whole thing, because also you had
Speaker 1: the guy portraying ron Stalworth um in the same room
Speaker 1: at the same lunch. It just seemed really strange. And
Speaker 1: again that it was one of those things where when
Speaker 1: you watched the movie you would think like, well, that's
Speaker 1: just made up. No, that actually took place, at least
Speaker 1: according to ron Stalworth's memoirs, and that that that Chuck
Speaker 1: was in the room was asked to take a picture
Speaker 1: by Ron Stalworth with David Duke and the Grand Dragon
Speaker 1: I guess who must be like the head of the
Speaker 1: state in Colorado. And then the last second, when he
Speaker 1: was counting down, he put his arms around the shoulders
Speaker 1: of the two clan guys and then got his hands
Speaker 1: on the picture. Apparently all of that was the case,
Speaker 1: but he's since lost the picture. Yeah, and Duke really
Speaker 1: did try to get it back, and uh, Stalworth like
Speaker 1: got to it quicker and said basically like if you
Speaker 1: try to take this thing, I will have arrested for
Speaker 1: assaulting a police officer. Right, don't do it, don't think
Speaker 1: about it, right, So he said he lost it in
Speaker 1: a move he wished he had taken better care of it.
Speaker 1: But um, the idea that it was like that, that's
Speaker 1: just so nuts. It tells you a lot about the
Speaker 1: investigation though to me, Like it makes you say, like, okay,
Speaker 1: how seriously were they taking this investigation at the time.
Speaker 1: If Stalworth later said all right, this is this is
Speaker 1: just um, you know, this is just another job to me.
Speaker 1: When I started it, I did the job, and then
Speaker 1: when it was done, I moved on to another job.
Speaker 1: The fact that he didn't talk about it much until
Speaker 1: I think he spoke about it to the press once
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six a Desert News article, um,
Speaker 1: and then didn't talk about it again until two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen when his memoirs came out. Um, it was just
Speaker 1: like a thing that they were doing that other people
Speaker 1: were doing other stuff too. Um. And then to to
Speaker 1: have like that part of it, that the idea that
Speaker 1: you would you would jeopardize it in that way, it
Speaker 1: just makes it like they weren't taking it as that
Speaker 1: big of an operation as as like the movie would
Speaker 1: like to to believe. I'm not sure. Well, I think
Speaker 1: in in real life it was it was a information
Speaker 1: gathering investigation Like it was never we're going to take
Speaker 1: down the clan in Colorado. UM, it was let's infiltrate
Speaker 1: and get as much information in fact finding as we can. UM.
Speaker 1: And in the end, after eight months, UM, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what happened. It was he considers Stalworth considers it
Speaker 1: a success and that they fulfilled their mission. UM. They
Speaker 1: did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight months
Speaker 1: span or at nine months span. And they did identify
Speaker 1: UM clan members who worked at Norad right who apparently
Speaker 1: they said they, I mean these days they would be
Speaker 1: fired probably, but they said they reassigned them to like
Speaker 1: Greenland or something, right because they had access to the
Speaker 1: two nuclear weapons. Apparently they had very high level clearance
Speaker 1: at nora Ad, which is scary. And then they also
Speaker 1: found plans that they didn't act on, like the whole
Speaker 1: bomb plot in the movie was was made up for
Speaker 1: dramatic purposes. But they did find links between for a
Speaker 1: plan to UM bomb a gay nightclub and another plan
Speaker 1: to steal automatic weapons from an army base, like an
Speaker 1: inside job. So it was, you know, it was valuable
Speaker 1: work they were doing, for sure, It just wasn't like,
Speaker 1: we're going to take the clan down, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was the the Department's big, big job at
Speaker 1: the time. No, certainly not. And and in the memoirs
Speaker 1: and in the movie to the the reason that's given
Speaker 1: for the the U the undercover operation to end is
Speaker 1: because it started to become successful. Um Ron Stalworth was
Speaker 1: nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of the clan.
Speaker 1: Like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take my job.
Speaker 1: Everybody likes you. You're really good at this, you're smart, Um,
Speaker 1: you should lead the clan here uh and the the
Speaker 1: police chief of Colorado Springs. So that's it, close it down,
Speaker 1: burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was
Speaker 1: worried about what what a pr nightmare it would be
Speaker 1: if it got out that some of his detectives were
Speaker 1: in the Colorado Springs Clan. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: what strikes me is odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez,
Speaker 1: this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado
Speaker 1: Springs Clan. He's talking to David Duke like, really that
Speaker 1: this this could not be kind of blown up into
Speaker 1: a larger investigation or a larger staying or something like that.
Speaker 1: And then secondly, and um Ron Stalworth himself addresses this,
Speaker 1: there's a very frequently a criticism of well, if this
Speaker 1: was such a big operation and they found all this stuff,
Speaker 1: why wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests? And right,
Speaker 1: not just David Duke. Stal Wars says also that some
Speaker 1: that in law enforcement to people question that, like why
Speaker 1: wasn't anyone arrested? And he said, it was an intel
Speaker 1: investigation and and that's what they did, is they gathered stuff.
Speaker 1: But then he very rightly points out, like you said,
Speaker 1: like the fact that they prevented cross burnings alone makes
Speaker 1: it a worthwhile and valuable operation. I think just some
Speaker 1: people on the outside are saying, well, why wasn't why
Speaker 1: wasn't more done? Why didn't more come out of this?
Speaker 1: You know? And I'm not quite sure what they're driving at,
Speaker 1: but there are you know. Stalworth brings that up in
Speaker 1: an interview I read with him like that people do
Speaker 1: ask that and wonder about that. Yeah, and Stalworth it's
Speaker 1: very proud of the fact that with the cross burnings.
Speaker 1: He was like, no, I can't remember the quote, but
Speaker 1: he said something about like, no children in Colorado Springs
Speaker 1: got you know, no young black kids had to see
Speaker 1: crosses on fire during that eight or nine month period,
Speaker 1: and uh, very proud of that, as he should be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for real. Um, so I mentioned the voice earlier and
Speaker 1: the fact that he had a different voice obviously than Chuck,
Speaker 1: and um, he said one time, only one time. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I think this was in the movie, wasn't it was?
Speaker 1: I was actually know it was. I remember. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: one time in the whole investigation, did someone say like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you sound different? Um, Chuck had just
Speaker 1: been at a in person meeting, came back. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then um Stalworth wants to follow up on the phone
Speaker 1: with Ken O'Dell about something right afterward. So he had
Speaker 1: just heard Chuck's voice for whatever this whole meeting and
Speaker 1: was talking to him and he was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you sound different. What's going on? And he just pulled
Speaker 1: it off. He coughed and said he had a sinus infection,
Speaker 1: and Ken O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you
Speaker 1: clear that up and gave him some good sinus medication advice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they definitely appeared in the movie. I mean you could
Speaker 1: not make this thing up. You know, it's crazy. No
Speaker 1: for real and no, apparently for a long time, Stalworth
Speaker 1: was saying like, yeah, I was just another job. It
Speaker 1: was just another operation. And I guess he told some
Speaker 1: some fellow like law enforcement friends or whatever about it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, dude, you this is a movie. You
Speaker 1: need to write this down, You need to get this
Speaker 1: out there. You this is a one in a million story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation wise
Speaker 1: was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it,
Speaker 1: like he's the voice, but they're sending a a white
Speaker 1: man like it's it's I'm surprised he pulled it off
Speaker 1: for that long. Yeah, I could totally see that one
Speaker 1: final thing that did not happen in real life but
Speaker 1: did happen in the movie. And this is what when
Speaker 1: you usually will change real life is to to get
Speaker 1: a more satisfying ending. But Stalwart did not, unfortunately, reveal
Speaker 1: his true identity to David Duke like he does to
Speaker 1: hilarious effect in the film. Unfortunately. No, he was saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he just he didn't really talk about it until the
Speaker 1: two thousand's, So David Duke didn't know until I guess
Speaker 1: the memoirs came out. Yeah, and you know, well, I
Speaker 1: guess we should talk about Spike Lee getting criticized. Um,
Speaker 1: Boots Riley director, Uh who, I had a movie crush
Speaker 1: by the way, he um, what was his movie? Sorry
Speaker 1: to Bother You? Was his film that he made? No,
Speaker 1: I mean his pick for movie crush. His pick was
Speaker 1: a movie called Mishima, A Life and Four Chapters. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a great film and his like, his knowledge
Speaker 1: on movies was deep. He turned me onto a lot
Speaker 1: of cool things. Thought for a very a very terrible second,
Speaker 1: you were saying his pick was his own movie. No no,
Speaker 1: but he uh, you know, Boots does not hold back
Speaker 1: on what he thinks. Um. And while you would think
Speaker 1: that he would be like, oh no, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a champion of Spike Lee and telling the story, he
Speaker 1: came out very publicly on Twitter and the very uh
Speaker 1: intelligently criticized that he didn't just bag on it. He
Speaker 1: wrote a big, um long statement on exactly what he
Speaker 1: thought was wrong with it. Yeah. He basically said, look, man,
Speaker 1: if you take away all the embellishments that Spike Lee
Speaker 1: added to this movie, what you have is a a
Speaker 1: guy who who's probably biggest assignment. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where he got this, but he focused on that that
Speaker 1: um Stokely Carmichael thing and the fact that UM ron
Speaker 1: Stalworth had worked undercover UM to infiltrate the Black Power
Speaker 1: movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked on
Speaker 1: that for like three years. That this clan thing was
Speaker 1: just a like a nine month thing. And he also
Speaker 1: criticized Spike Lee for making it making the movie seem
Speaker 1: like law enforcement and the Black Power movement came together
Speaker 1: to fight racism and that that like that was a
Speaker 1: larger pointer, that that was historically accurate or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a really interesting It was like a three
Speaker 1: page essay that he posted on Twitter that made some
Speaker 1: good points. He basically said, from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: it looks like ron Stalworth was working for co intel Pro,
Speaker 1: which is the FBI s um it was their their
Speaker 1: program to undermine groups, including Black Power group, which we
Speaker 1: mentioned it in the Black Panther episode we did, and
Speaker 1: it the Coentel Pro definitely deserves its own episode, and
Speaker 1: it was it was ended officially in ninety one, but
Speaker 1: I think Boots Riley's point was, um, it might have
Speaker 1: been officially ended, but the work was still going on.
Speaker 1: And if this guy was infiltrating Black Power UM like
Speaker 1: groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly trying to
Speaker 1: break them up one way or another, probably using cointel
Speaker 1: um purposes or or practices. And Ron Stalworth he had
Speaker 1: a pretty great quote in response to it. He said, um,
Speaker 1: I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in response to
Speaker 1: Boots Riley and Spike Lee has no comment about it whatsoever,
Speaker 1: So who knows. But you make a good point that
Speaker 1: like he's he's he's not just giving like blind allegiance
Speaker 1: to anything. Sure. Well, Spike did comment eventually, Oh I
Speaker 1: didn't see that. Yeah, he was. He was in an interview.
Speaker 1: In the first thing he said was like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a young man of sixty one or something
Speaker 1: like that, and like, you know, young me might have
Speaker 1: kind of gotten into a war of words, but he's
Speaker 1: just not into that anymore. Um. But he did say, uh,
Speaker 1: briefly something about listen, I'm not gonna come out and
Speaker 1: say that all cops are a racist and all cops
Speaker 1: do bad things because they don't all do bad things.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of great cops, there's also bad cops. Um,
Speaker 1: And he kind of just couched it in that and
Speaker 1: then was like, but you know, I'm not gonna be
Speaker 1: really talking about this anymore, right, Yeah, I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: that he'd even had that comment. So it's interesting stuff
Speaker 1: and it's a good movie at the very least. Oh
Speaker 1: for sure. You know, I think I think ron stalwarts like, man,
Speaker 1: they made a movie about my story. That's pretty awesome
Speaker 1: and at the very least it's a pretty great movie.
Speaker 1: How about that? Totally totally so um, if you you
Speaker 1: got anything else, I got nothing else. If you want
Speaker 1: to know more about black claims, mean, you should probably
Speaker 1: go see that movie. And I guess we probably should
Speaker 1: have said at the outset this episode is not an ad,
Speaker 1: of course not. We just like the movie a lot, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you could say it's an ad, but like,
Speaker 1: no one gave us money or asses to do this. Sure, Uh, okay,
Speaker 1: endorsing it. Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it
Speaker 1: as well. It has two thumbs up, as it were,
Speaker 1: rest in peace Roger Ebert and giene Ciscal two thumbs Okay,
Speaker 1: So if already already said that. How about some listener mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this ping pong response from a former pro. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: want to come in you on the job you did
Speaker 1: covering a sport that you didn't have an extensive, extensive
Speaker 1: knowledge of. I'm a professional table tennis coach and former player.
Speaker 1: I started playing in college. Thought it was really good
Speaker 1: until I was coerced to go to a tournament at
Speaker 1: Princeton University about twenty years ago and I got destroyed.
Speaker 1: I didn't like that, so I saw it out to
Speaker 1: coach and the rest is history. You guys clearly did
Speaker 1: a lot of research and to highlight the things that
Speaker 1: most novice players aren't aware of. But there were a
Speaker 1: few things I couldn't help but point out. Josh, you
Speaker 1: mentioned the components of the modern racket. You said the
Speaker 1: pimpled sign those are called pips are for spinning the ball,
Speaker 1: that the smooth side is for defensive play. But the
Speaker 1: opposite is actually true. Um I didn't catch that because
Speaker 1: I would have pointed that out. I thought everyone knew that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. You get good spin on that
Speaker 1: smooth side for real? Oh yeah, yeah, it's grippy. All right, uh,
Speaker 1: he said. The smooth side is very tacky um as
Speaker 1: in sticky, and that combined with the sponge underneath, allows
Speaker 1: the ball to sink in just enough so that the
Speaker 1: taxi service grips the ball and generates a lot of spin. Also,
Speaker 1: you can have really have any combination of rubber that
Speaker 1: you want as long as it's I T t F approved.
Speaker 1: Players are not restricted to having one smooth side and
Speaker 1: one with pips, but one side does have to be
Speaker 1: read and the other black. Most defensive players use pips
Speaker 1: on their back hand because ups vary the spin that
Speaker 1: is coming back at you and it's very hard to read. Also, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that defensive players are called chiselers. They're actually
Speaker 1: called choppers, as they chopped the ball back with varying
Speaker 1: back spin. I've never heard the term chiselers. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if it is extremely outdated. Maybe I bet you that
Speaker 1: was the gates I had old research. Chisela's all right,
Speaker 1: that's what they call them. That's funny, he said. If
Speaker 1: you guys are ever in the done Ellen, New Jersey area,
Speaker 1: stopped by there right now, stopped by the Lily Yep
Speaker 1: Table Tennis Club and I'll gladly hook you guys up
Speaker 1: with a lesson. I will gladly humiliate you in person.
Speaker 1: And that is Thomas from Philly. Thanks Thomas, um much appreciated.
Speaker 1: We like it when we were gently corrected because we
Speaker 1: like to be right, so thanks for that. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, let us know, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know something we got wrong about black Clansman.
Speaker 1: Let us know. You can find all of our so
Speaker 1: show links on Stuff you Should Know dot com and
Speaker 1: has always Send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: H