Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the three
Speaker 2: of us together. It's movie crush, I mean stuff. You
Speaker 2: should know.
Speaker 3: This does have some stank on it doesn't it. It's
Speaker 3: a movie stank. H.
Speaker 2: I know your game is cool.
Speaker 3: I didn't even ask you have you seen Black Clansman.
Speaker 2: I was like, I can't. I can't do this episode
Speaker 2: without having seen it. So I watched it last night.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, Yeah good? Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. Like I like his choice
Speaker 2: at the end, like just completely pull a somersault on
Speaker 2: the viewer.
Speaker 3: Oh sure with that last bet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like spoiler alert, pretty power.
Speaker 3: There's an end all spoilery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. We should probably say that out of
Speaker 2: the gate. If you haven't seen this yet and you
Speaker 2: don't want it to be spoiled, don't listen this episode first. Yes,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I guess now that we've said that, we
Speaker 2: can speak freely. Right.
Speaker 3: Yes, So.
Speaker 2: The if if the entire movie was basically to disarm
Speaker 2: you up to the end, then I think it's one
Speaker 2: of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2: And even if it wasn't, that wasn't the entire point
Speaker 2: of the movie. It was still it was still great.
Speaker 2: And how he pulled it out at the end, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this was I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 3: but this is the movie I saw in Perth, Australia.
Speaker 3: Yeah that happens at the end, that big, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of gut punch of realism at the end. And
Speaker 3: I stood up and I was like, hmm, like, I
Speaker 3: wonder what they're thinking here in Perth.
Speaker 2: They probably think of what just happened? What's wrong with America?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm going, I my good to see you.
Speaker 3: I'm not American.
Speaker 2: I'm Canadian. Can't you tell bloke?
Speaker 3: Oh goodness. Yeah. It was one of those things where
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm kind of slightly embarrassed right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I like that.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed the movie though. I thought to see Spike Lee,
Speaker 3: who just he's one of my favorite filmmakers in his sixties,
Speaker 3: still just bringing the juice like this. I loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also loved that it was controversial too, in that,
Speaker 2: like some people criticize Spike Lee for like not going
Speaker 2: far enough or maybe kind of glossing over some of
Speaker 2: the ugly aspects of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, do you want to get to that at
Speaker 3: the end, maybe, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, but we'll give it a pre mention
Speaker 2: shout out, which is what we just did.
Speaker 3: Right, So we are talking about the true story of
Speaker 3: the film Black Clansman, Spike Lee's movie that won the
Speaker 3: Grand Prize at the con Film Festival. It's nominated for
Speaker 3: Academy Awards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, three Oscars, I believe for including Best Picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Picture, Director, and.
Speaker 2: Supporting Actor for who I would guess Adam Driver. I
Speaker 2: didn't see. Really, Yeah, I was surprised because Denzel's son
Speaker 2: did a wonderful job as well.
Speaker 3: He loves he loves that being known as that, right.
Speaker 2: I can't remember his first name, but you know, Denzel's son.
Speaker 2: He was like there were several times when he was
Speaker 2: talking and I was like, oh, you are definitely Denzel
Speaker 2: Washington's son man, just the way he talked, the sound
Speaker 2: of his voice. But also is acting too, he's a
Speaker 2: good actor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so all right, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for
Speaker 3: Adam Driver, Best Director, and Best Original Music Score. Oh nice,
Speaker 3: but yeah, he is. I didn't know he was Denzel
Speaker 3: Sun un till after the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 3: And he was a football player, do you know that?
Speaker 2: I didn't who he played for.
Speaker 3: He played for Morehouse here in Atlanta. He was a
Speaker 3: running back and then played an NFL on the practice
Speaker 3: squad for the RAM and then eventually played a few
Speaker 3: years in NFL Europe and the UFL until he hung
Speaker 3: up his cleats six years ago.
Speaker 2: Oh that's cool. Yeah, playing football in Europe has got
Speaker 2: to be a surreal experience, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's a soccer ball.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, what are you doing? This is all wrong?
Speaker 3: All right? So should we way back into the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 3: the groovy seventies of Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 2: First we should say his name is John David Washington.
Speaker 2: Oh sure you were kidding Denzel Son. Yes, so yeah,
Speaker 2: let's get in the way back machine and see go
Speaker 2: inspect their terrible, low quality pot.
Speaker 3: So Ron Stalworth is the true to life character's name.
Speaker 3: Who There was a football player growing when we were
Speaker 3: growing up named John Stalworth. So I'm always wanting to
Speaker 3: say John Stalworth.
Speaker 2: This is not him. This is a cop named Ron Stalworth.
Speaker 3: That's right, and he had a few designations that are
Speaker 3: pretty important. He was the first African American police officer
Speaker 3: to work for the Colorado Springs Police Department, which he
Speaker 3: joined as a cadet at the age of nineteen. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in seventy two, and then a couple of years later
Speaker 3: on his twenty first birthday, on his twenty first birthday.
Speaker 2: That's what I saw ye had June eighteenth.
Speaker 3: I believe Nice was sworn in as a full on
Speaker 3: officer of the law.
Speaker 2: Right And I'm not sure if like they just swear
Speaker 2: you in on your twenty first birthday or if it
Speaker 2: just so happened that'san ceremony was on his twenty first birthday,
Speaker 2: but regardless, it was a big deal. He's the first
Speaker 2: African American cop and then later on detective for Colorado
Speaker 2: spring So that's a big deal, especially starting out at
Speaker 2: age twenty one too. That takes a lot of cajones
Speaker 2: as they call it in Colorado. No.
Speaker 3: I think they call those rocky Mountain oysters.
Speaker 2: That's right, that is what they call him for sure.
Speaker 3: So he worked undercover for about thirty years long, great
Speaker 3: careers an undercover detective, but it was this case which
Speaker 3: only came out about four years ago when he wrote
Speaker 3: a book about it about his career when he went
Speaker 3: under cover as a well as a clansman. But it's
Speaker 3: a little more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: It was a very complicated operation, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And this wasn't something that like, I mean, he
Speaker 3: even says in this NPR interview that he didn't. It
Speaker 3: was just a job at that particular point in time.
Speaker 3: And when that particular job ended, that is the undercover stint,
Speaker 3: which was about what eight or nine months, I moved
Speaker 3: on to something else and it just happened by circumstance.
Speaker 3: So he didn't come in there with a bone to
Speaker 3: pick with the Klan, aside from probably every bone to
Speaker 3: pick that he had with the Klan, right, just as
Speaker 3: a black man in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I knew it would probably help to give
Speaker 2: a little background on the Klan at the time, because
Speaker 2: you know, the clan was very well known for being
Speaker 2: really big and really violent. At over. Three waves is
Speaker 2: basically how the clan history is divided. Yeah, Like the
Speaker 2: first wave was when they were they were founded in
Speaker 2: the wake of the Civil War. Then they had the
Speaker 2: second wave came around the nineteen teens, like nineteen fifty fifteen,
Speaker 2: I mean that era, and then they had another big
Speaker 2: resurgence during the Civil Rights era in the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 2: But you know, in between these waves and after that
Speaker 2: third wave, it's not like the Clan just went away.
Speaker 2: They kept on going. Their profile was lower, and maybe
Speaker 2: the public violence or terrorism that they were engaging in
Speaker 2: wasn't quite as pronounced, but they were still there, and
Speaker 2: in Colorado in particular, they had a really long history
Speaker 2: with the Klan, where basically the city of Denver was
Speaker 2: in under the control of the Klan back in the twenties,
Speaker 2: just you know, fifty years before Ron Stalwarts started working there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was. When he got hired there, he got
Speaker 3: access to files like secret FBI files, and he got
Speaker 3: to go in and dig in and look at the
Speaker 3: history of the Clan in Colorado, and boy, like you
Speaker 3: ain't kidding, they were in the House of Representatives. There
Speaker 3: were senators.
Speaker 2: Both senators were Clans members.
Speaker 3: The mayor Benjamin Stapleton, who the airport was named after
Speaker 3: until ninety five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his great grandson ran for governor on the GOP
Speaker 2: ticket this past election and lost to who is Colorado's
Speaker 2: first ever openly gay Jewish governor.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Colorado is a weird state.
Speaker 2: It is an odd state for a.
Speaker 3: Lot of different ideologies all packed in together.
Speaker 2: It's very purple in all sorts of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a clan member. The
Speaker 3: governor Clarence Morley was a clan member chief of police,
Speaker 3: which is I mean, you don't want anyone in these
Speaker 3: positions to be clan members, but I imagine the chief
Speaker 3: of police is one of the more problematic areas to
Speaker 3: have a person in that kind of control.
Speaker 2: Particularly that one too. He was basically he was picked
Speaker 2: by the clan, the Colorado Clan, and basically foisted on
Speaker 2: Benjamin Stapleton, who who was even like, wow, this guy's
Speaker 2: even too much for my tastes, and eventually fired him.
Speaker 2: But like the clan picked the chief of police of Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 2: back in the twenties.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And they tried to recall Stapleton at one point.
Speaker 3: It didn't work, and when that effort failed, the klan
Speaker 3: burned across on the top of Table Mountain as a celebration,
Speaker 3: a show of public celebration.
Speaker 2: Right, So the clan has deep roots and an old
Speaker 2: story in Colorado, or at least they used to, and
Speaker 2: they were still very much around when Ron Stalworth started
Speaker 2: as stigationners started as the first black detective in Colorado Springs, right,
Speaker 2: that's right. And so he started out I guess, his
Speaker 2: kind of playing clothes and was assigned undercover work pretty
Speaker 2: quickly just by his just by being the only African
Speaker 2: American officer in the police force. Because Stokely Carmichael came
Speaker 2: to town once.
Speaker 3: That's right, And this is in the film. We're going
Speaker 3: to talk about a few differences between the movie and
Speaker 3: the real story. But he did, in fact to go
Speaker 3: to a speech in a rally by famous black panther
Speaker 3: Stokely Carmichael, and he was, you know fully kitted out
Speaker 3: in his bell bottoms and his wearing a wire, he
Speaker 3: picked his afro out, and he in fact did make
Speaker 3: a point to meet him, just like he did in
Speaker 3: the film. And Carmichael did apparently say arm yourself and
Speaker 3: get ready because the revolution has come. And I imagine
Speaker 3: Stalworth had some mixed feelings about that assignment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would guess. So it's kind of like, I
Speaker 2: don't really have any idea of what he personally was
Speaker 2: like because the movie mixed things up so much, in
Speaker 2: like added layers that weren't necessarily there. So I have
Speaker 2: no idea what that experience would have been like for him,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One thing we do know is not true is
Speaker 3: the character in the film of Patrese, whom he meets
Speaker 3: at that rally, young woman that he falls in love with.
Speaker 3: She was made up for the movie. Spike Lee wanted
Speaker 3: a love interest basically, and to represent sort of the
Speaker 3: female black power movement as a whole, So she was
Speaker 3: completely made up. But she was terrific in the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Laura Harrier. She's in the New Spider Man movies too.
Speaker 2: She's awesome, cool, the New Spider Verse movie.
Speaker 3: No no, no, that's animated. Oh okay, well she could
Speaker 3: have been a voice actor.
Speaker 2: I guess right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, she's in the one, the New Ones with the
Speaker 3: New Kid.
Speaker 2: Okay, the New Spider Kid, the Current Spider Man.
Speaker 3: Current Spider Man, which is great. Those are good movies.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any of them.
Speaker 3: You're not super into that stuff, though, were you.
Speaker 2: Well? I saw The Infinity War when he was in that.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, he's a bit of a smart Alec
Speaker 2: Frankly he is.
Speaker 3: So okay, he does his research on the deep roots
Speaker 3: of the clan in Colorado, he goes under cover, and
Speaker 3: then I don't think he was even assigned this thing.
Speaker 3: I think he kind of came up with it on
Speaker 3: his own, by chance, almost in October nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3: He was twenty five at this point, and he was
Speaker 3: looking through the local paper.
Speaker 2: Well that was part of his assignment, to gather intelligence
Speaker 2: by reading the paper.
Speaker 3: Well, right, but I don't think I think this was
Speaker 3: his idea to go undercover like this.
Speaker 2: That's the impression I have too.
Speaker 3: He seemed like a self starter in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: So he found this ad, a classify ad in the
Speaker 3: paper for the clan said get in touch if you
Speaker 3: want further information. He sent a letter posing as a
Speaker 3: white racist to a po box, just thinking that he
Speaker 3: would just get back some pamphlets or something. So he
Speaker 3: signed his real name, which is he didn't really think
Speaker 3: that went through.
Speaker 2: No, he didn't, and he did. He never really fully
Speaker 2: explained it aside from the best explanation I saw is
Speaker 2: that he didn't think anything was going to come of it.
Speaker 2: He thought he'd get like you said, a couple of
Speaker 2: pamphlets and that would be that. And he just wasn't
Speaker 2: planning to create like a large investigation out of making
Speaker 2: contact through this ad. And again we should probably state this.
Speaker 2: It was an ad in the paper for the clan
Speaker 2: to get in touch with the clan, to get more
Speaker 2: info about the clan and maybe you might want to join.
Speaker 2: Who knows, right, So he makes contact with him by
Speaker 2: sending off a letter. And if you ask me, if
Speaker 2: if Spike Lee were directing this episode, he would put
Speaker 2: an ad break right here.
Speaker 3: That was good.
Speaker 2: Who are we to disagree?
Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Okay. So, like we said, ron Stalworth is thumbing through
Speaker 2: the newspaper. He mails off a letter to get more
Speaker 2: info about the clan, and he uses his real name,
Speaker 2: and like you said, Chuck, he was expecting like a
Speaker 2: pamphlet or something in return, like so you want to
Speaker 2: be a clan member or something like that. Instead, about
Speaker 2: two weeks later, he got a call from the numbers.
Speaker 2: So he used everything as far as the undercover operation
Speaker 2: would go. He used all of his undercover info except
Speaker 2: for his name. So he got a call in his
Speaker 2: undercover phone line from a guy named Ken O'Dell and
Speaker 2: he was pretty surprised to get this call because again
Speaker 2: he was expecting a pamphlet and instead he had a real, live, living,
Speaker 2: breathing Ku Klux Klansman on the other end of the
Speaker 2: line saying, Hey, I got your letter about hating black
Speaker 2: people and other minorities. Let's talk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like, why are you interested? And Stalwarth
Speaker 3: immediately just kind of goes into character, and I guess
Speaker 3: that's what you know when you're undercover. You got to
Speaker 3: be part improv actor, right to be able to pull
Speaker 3: that off.
Speaker 2: Well. He also he said he drew from his own
Speaker 2: personal experiences because he grew up in El Paso and
Speaker 2: encountered a lot of racism there and I'm sure on
Speaker 2: the force in Colorado Springs too, so he drew from
Speaker 2: his own experience as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he basically right out of the gate, says, well,
Speaker 3: you know, my sister's dating a black man, and every
Speaker 3: time he puts his hands on her, on her pure
Speaker 3: white body, I cringe and I want to do something
Speaker 3: about it. And Ken O'Dell says, you sound like a
Speaker 3: great guy once you come on down and let's meet,
Speaker 3: because you are just the kind of kind of dude
Speaker 3: we're looking for you.
Speaker 2: Sound like real clam material. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought about maybe doing an episode on the Klan.
Speaker 2: I thought about the two and then I'm like, do
Speaker 2: you want to give him a platform?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But then I thought, or you know, you could
Speaker 3: just talk about it and how stupid they are all right?
Speaker 3: Like it when I was a kid. I mean, of course,
Speaker 3: being in Georgia, that stuff was around. I never saw
Speaker 3: it firsthand, obviously, yeah, but you heard things even like
Speaker 3: growing up in the seventies in Georgia, and I was
Speaker 3: always so scared of the whole thing because of the
Speaker 3: outfits and everything and the fire. And I was a
Speaker 3: good little Baptist boy, so there was a lot of fear.
Speaker 3: But then I got a little older and I was like,
Speaker 3: they're just dumb rednecks wearing sheets, right, sort of demystified it.
Speaker 2: That's the moment you become an adult. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I mean, of course, then I would later learn
Speaker 3: that they did real horrific things and took lives and
Speaker 3: you know, or a terrorist organization.
Speaker 2: Right right. Yeah, But I think what you're saying is
Speaker 2: they made themselves up to be boogeymen. Yeah, exactly, and
Speaker 2: they definitely can be that way, especially in the young
Speaker 2: mind or something like that. But sure. Yeah. So so
Speaker 2: back to the story. Ron Stalworth is on the phone
Speaker 2: with this guy named Ken O'Dell who wants to meet
Speaker 2: him to see if he'd like to join the Klan.
Speaker 2: And this is a big problem because I think, as
Speaker 2: we mentioned a couple of times, ron Stalworth was African American.
Speaker 3: Yeah, He's like, oh boy, what do I do here?
Speaker 2: Right? So he actually recruited a fellow detective who he
Speaker 2: in his book calls Chuck. That's all he's ever publicly
Speaker 2: referred to the guy as is Chuck Waite? Was it you, Chuck?
Speaker 3: It was not me that gentleman. Is I guess either
Speaker 3: still undercover or just never wanted his identity out there? Right?
Speaker 2: So he Yeah, he may still live in Colorado Springs.
Speaker 3: Who knows, maybe he's on a case right now for
Speaker 3: all I know.
Speaker 2: But so this Chuck guys, he was recruited by Ron
Speaker 2: Stalwarts to play ron stalwarth to the Klan because Chuck
Speaker 2: was white, he was already an undercover narcotics agent and
Speaker 2: apparently he was friendly enough with Ron Stalwart to say, yes,
Speaker 2: I will join this investigation, buddy, Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And here's the thing though he was this wasn't
Speaker 3: his primary case. So Chuck is undercover on a lot
Speaker 3: of different assignments, so he's not around as much as
Speaker 3: Stalwart needs him. So, like in the movie, most of
Speaker 3: this stuff is done over the phone. Like, he spends
Speaker 3: a lot of time in this investigation on the phone
Speaker 3: speaking to these clansmen who think that he's a white man,
Speaker 3: and when they needed to meet, he would send Chuck
Speaker 3: in who And we'll get to the voice part in
Speaker 3: a minute, because that's when I was watching the movie.
Speaker 3: I was like, do none of these dummies not realize
Speaker 3: that they don't sound anything alike, right, you know, because
Speaker 3: they've been talking to him on the phone at length.
Speaker 3: But they had they had their first meeting. They they
Speaker 3: got together, and I believe they met. They met somewhere
Speaker 3: at first and then went to a bar after, like
Speaker 3: as the second part of that meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they met at a convenience So the movie supposedly
Speaker 2: portrays this realistically. They they this Chuck guy who was
Speaker 2: portraying Ron Stalwarts to the Klan. They met at a
Speaker 2: convenience store and he was said he was told to
Speaker 2: get in the car and then they drove to a
Speaker 2: second location. Man, that's scary stuff. And also he's also
Speaker 2: wearing a wire at the time. Like that's something that
Speaker 2: that the movie kind of gets across, but especially in
Speaker 2: like articles about the story don't necessarily dive into this.
Speaker 2: Chuck cat was like putting himself out there.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, as every undercover detective does.
Speaker 2: Right. So, I mean Ron Stalworth is conducting this investigation,
Speaker 2: he's the mastermind of he's leading this whole thing. But
Speaker 2: this poor Chuck guy has to go hang out with
Speaker 2: these you know, violent clans members or clan members on
Speaker 2: you know, like fairly frequently from what I understand. So
Speaker 2: hats off to him.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean it was it was definitely
Speaker 3: like it required both of their best efforts to get
Speaker 3: away with this for that long, right, it was quite
Speaker 3: the ruse. So Chuck meets with them, eventually earns their
Speaker 3: trust along with the phone work of Stalworth, and then
Speaker 3: he actually gets successfully admitted about two months later and
Speaker 3: got his little I guess you get a little membership card.
Speaker 2: He still has it.
Speaker 3: He does. He did not throw it away like in
Speaker 3: the movie. He has it framed in fact and on
Speaker 3: the back of the card. Were six codes of conduct,
Speaker 3: one of which said never discuss any clan affairs with
Speaker 3: any plane clothes officer on a state, local, or national level.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, there is a lot of comedy in the movie
Speaker 3: if you haven't seen it, I mean, it's it's a
Speaker 3: serious thing that they're doing. But there are a lot
Speaker 3: of laughs as well.
Speaker 2: A lot of laughs and a lot of like movie
Speaker 2: formula steps that Spike Lee purposely follows, you know, very
Speaker 2: faithfully too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So there's a big point
Speaker 2: there that we left out of the Chuck so to
Speaker 2: get that membership card, supposedly, again, as they say in Colorado,
Speaker 2: the oysters on this guy his he had, so he met.
Speaker 2: So the fake fake Ron saw with Chuck met with
Speaker 2: the Klan impressed them enough. Between Ron, the real Ron
Speaker 2: Stalwarts phone calls and Chuck's whatever Chuck was saying in person,
Speaker 2: All this combined made the Colorado Springs Clan members say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we like you, we want you to be a member.
Speaker 2: Fill out this application and we'll send it off to
Speaker 2: the to the national director of again the Klan, we
Speaker 2: should say, I don't know if we've ever said this.
Speaker 2: The Klan calls itself the organization rather than the clan.
Speaker 2: So they and the guy who ran the thing. I
Speaker 2: don't know if he still runs it or not, but
Speaker 2: he definitely did at this time during this investigation is
Speaker 2: a guy named David Duke, who if you grew up
Speaker 2: in the eighties or I think even the nineties, yeah,
Speaker 2: you were probably pretty familiar with David Duke. I believe
Speaker 2: he ran for president once, didn't he?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean he was, wasn't he the
Speaker 3: governor of Louisiana.
Speaker 2: I don't Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he ran
Speaker 2: for that. But he was the Grand Wizard of the
Speaker 2: Ku Klux Klan, and he was trying to make it
Speaker 2: a more political organization, less of a terrorist organization and
Speaker 2: more of a political organization under his guidance, but it
Speaker 2: was still the Ku Klux Klan. Like there was still
Speaker 2: plenty of times when he was wearing robes and stuff
Speaker 2: he just never did in public. So during this time
Speaker 2: he was the national director, the Grand Wizard of the Klan,
Speaker 2: and when ron Stalwarts didn't get his application pushed through
Speaker 2: fast enough, he picked up the phone, had called the
Speaker 2: national headquarters and ended up talking with David Duke and
Speaker 2: saying like, Hey, my application is taking a while. Is
Speaker 2: there anything you can do about it? And this kicked
Speaker 2: off like what Ron Stalwart would later characterize in a
Speaker 2: weird way as a friendship between him, a black undercover
Speaker 2: detective in Colorado, and David Duke, the Grand Wizard of
Speaker 2: the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I don't want to get angry
Speaker 3: emails from David Duke supporters.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: He was a Republican Louisiana State rep. He was not governor,
Speaker 3: but I think he ran for some high off. Oh
Speaker 3: he did. He ran. He was a candidate for the
Speaker 3: Democratic presidential primaries in the late eighties and then the
Speaker 3: Republican primaries in ninety two.
Speaker 2: He ran as a Democrat, and then I could see
Speaker 2: that solid South kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think he ran for state Senate and
Speaker 3: lost US Senate and lost US House and loss. And
Speaker 3: he did run for governor of Louisiana but he lost.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, Okay?
Speaker 3: And you maybe if you're if you didn't grow up
Speaker 3: in the eighties, you may have heard his name more
Speaker 3: recently because he fully endorsed Donald Trump's campaign, and after
Speaker 3: Donald Trump won, he this was his quote on Twitter
Speaker 3: make no mistake, our people have played a huge role
Speaker 3: in electing Trump. So he was. He was in the
Speaker 3: news again more recently.
Speaker 2: Well, he was also in Charlottesville, if not leading the
Speaker 2: rally to Unite the Right. Definitely a big speaker at it,
Speaker 2: a big part of it. And Spike Lee uses some
Speaker 2: of his footage from that rally to kind of get
Speaker 2: across that, you know, this stuff is still going on.
Speaker 2: This isn't from the seventies or earlier.
Speaker 3: How great was tof Grace?
Speaker 2: He was wonderful.
Speaker 3: He was so good and he looks a lot like
Speaker 3: David Duke of the seventies.
Speaker 2: He really does, unfortunately for the stash and the three
Speaker 2: piece suits and all that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, he did a good job.
Speaker 2: But so so yeah in the movie Toe for Grace
Speaker 2: from that seventies show. Always he will always be from
Speaker 2: that seventies show. Yeah, he plays what do you want
Speaker 2: me to say? Like he had a bit part in
Speaker 2: Ocean's eleven or something. Brad Pitt's character was teaching him
Speaker 2: to play poker.
Speaker 3: I think I got about that.
Speaker 2: You know that guy.
Speaker 3: No, he's that seventy show of course.
Speaker 2: So so he he plays David Duke in the in
Speaker 2: the movie and there this, this is, this is it's
Speaker 2: really funny, like Spike Lee added stuff that just you
Speaker 2: you would think like, well, yeah, of course it's totally believable,
Speaker 2: like Chuck being Jewish in real life, right, and he
Speaker 2: actually wasn't. That's that's fabricated by the movie. So you
Speaker 2: would just not even think twice about that. But it
Speaker 2: turns out that's not true. The stuff that seems the
Speaker 2: least true was actually the stuff that actually happened, and
Speaker 2: for a very long time, at the very least over
Speaker 2: the course of this nine month investigation, there were multiple
Speaker 2: phone calls that were very cordial and where ron Stalworth
Speaker 2: would call David Duke imposing as a White clam member
Speaker 2: and pumping from information. They would talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: David Duke's family, and like just have normal conversations that
Speaker 2: would inevitably turn back to racism and the weakening of
Speaker 2: the white race at the hands of you know, the
Speaker 2: Jewish media and all the minorities who are taking over,
Speaker 2: and so it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later,
Speaker 2: I think in the book in an interviews where if
Speaker 2: you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a
Speaker 2: pleasant person to talk to. And that's where that weird
Speaker 2: friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from
Speaker 2: those conversations.
Speaker 3: But there is like he couldn't make this stuff up,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Exactly, But there is at least one video of David
Speaker 2: Duke basically admitting that, yes, this he had conversations with
Speaker 2: this guy. He tries to downplay it, sure, but he
Speaker 2: does basically verify that, yes, that's true, that really happened.
Speaker 3: Well, and Duke's probably like I can't remember every phone
Speaker 3: call I had with every random racist over the years, right,
Speaker 3: there were a lot of even that skuy posing is one.
Speaker 3: All right, well, let's take another break and we're gonna go.
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk a little bit more about this weird
Speaker 3: David Duke relationship right after this. All right, so he's
Speaker 3: budding up with David Duke on the phone. He's fooling everybody,
Speaker 3: and he even like you get the sense that he
Speaker 3: does have a little bit of sense of humor Stalworth
Speaker 3: because at one point he even goaded him on the
Speaker 3: phone a little bit. And this is in the movie,
Speaker 3: and it was totally true. Said, you know, mister Duke,
Speaker 3: have you ever worried about like a black man posing
Speaker 3: as a white man and infiltrating your organization. And Duke
Speaker 3: said no. And he said, and this is from the
Speaker 3: NPR interview with Stalworth, he said, I can tell you're
Speaker 3: white because you don't talk like a black man. He said,
Speaker 3: you talk like a very smart, intellectual white man. And
Speaker 3: I can tell by the way you pronounce certain words.
Speaker 3: And he said, you know, give me an example, and
Speaker 3: he said, black people tend to pronounce the word are ara,
Speaker 3: And I can tell by listening to you that you're
Speaker 3: not black because you do not pronounce that word in
Speaker 3: that manner. It's science case closed. Oh boy, he was
Speaker 3: so easily duped. I love it. And then they also
Speaker 3: did in fact meet in person. That part is true
Speaker 3: as well. Duke came to town and was having lunch. It
Speaker 3: was not a big ceremony like in the movie, but
Speaker 3: he came to town to have lunch, and the department
Speaker 3: assigned Stalwarth to protect him, and so he goes there
Speaker 3: to the restaurant introduces himself to protect him. Duke says,
Speaker 3: all right, I appreciate you them, you know, sending someone
Speaker 3: my way. And Chuck is undercover there as well, and
Speaker 3: he does in fact, Stalworth pose with David Duke and
Speaker 3: gets a polaroid with him.
Speaker 2: So this sounded to me like what what was the
Speaker 2: what was going on here? Like, I mean, like, you've
Speaker 2: got this investigation going, this is this takes place during
Speaker 2: this this undercover investigation that Stalwart's conducting. You have a
Speaker 2: guy who's already like putting himself out there Chuck as
Speaker 2: as the white Ron Stalworth. And then the chief says, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: by the way, you the only African American police officer
Speaker 2: in our entire squad. You go be David Duke's bodyguard
Speaker 2: for the day while he's in town in Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2: Like that was just bizarre. And not only do it
Speaker 2: do that that that very like obvious over act slapping
Speaker 2: the face to David Duke, which is great, but if
Speaker 2: it but it could have jeopardized like this whole thing
Speaker 2: because also you had the guy portraying ron Stalworth in
Speaker 2: the same room at the same lunch. It just seemed
Speaker 2: really strange. And again, that was one of those things
Speaker 2: where when you watch the movie you would think like, well,
Speaker 2: that's just made up. No, that actually took place, at
Speaker 2: least according to Ron Stalwart's memoirs.
Speaker 3: And that that.
Speaker 2: Chuck was in the room was asked to take a
Speaker 2: picture by Ron Stalworth with David Duke and the Grand Dragon.
Speaker 2: I guess who must be like the head of the
Speaker 2: state in Colorado. And then the last second, when he
Speaker 2: was counting down, he put his arms around the shoulders
Speaker 2: of the two clan guys and then got his hands
Speaker 2: on the picture. Apparently all of that was the case,
Speaker 2: but he's since lost the picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Duke really did try to get it back,
Speaker 3: and Stalwarth like got to it quicker and said basically like,
Speaker 3: if you try to take this thing, I will have
Speaker 3: you arrested for assaulting a police officer. Don't do it.
Speaker 3: Don't think about it.
Speaker 2: All right, So he said he lost it in a move.
Speaker 2: He wished he had taken better care of it. But
Speaker 2: the idea that it was like, that's just so nuts.
Speaker 2: It tells you a lot about the investigation though to me,
Speaker 2: like it makes you say, like, okay, how seriously were
Speaker 2: they taking this investigation at the time. If Stalwart later said,
Speaker 2: all right, this is this is just you know, this
Speaker 2: is just another job to me. When I started it,
Speaker 2: I did the job. And then when it was done,
Speaker 2: I moved on to another job. The fact that he
Speaker 2: didn't talk about it much until I think he spoke
Speaker 2: about it to the press once in two thousand and
Speaker 2: six a Desert News article, and then didn't talk about
Speaker 2: it again until twenty fourteen when his memoirs came out.
Speaker 2: It was just like a thing that they were doing
Speaker 2: that other people were doing other stuff too. And then
Speaker 2: to have like that part of it, that the idea
Speaker 2: that you would you would jeopardize it in that way
Speaker 2: just makes it like they weren't taking it as that
Speaker 2: big of an operations, as like the movie would like
Speaker 2: to believe. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Well, I think in in real life it was it
Speaker 3: was a information gathering investigation. Like it was never we're
Speaker 3: going to take down the clan in Colorado. It was
Speaker 3: let's infiltrate and get as much information in fact finding
Speaker 3: as we can. And in the end, after eight months,
Speaker 3: that's kind of what happened. It was. He considers Stalwart
Speaker 3: considers it a success and that they fulfilled their mission.
Speaker 3: They did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight
Speaker 3: month span or a nine month span, and they did
Speaker 3: identify clan members who worked at noor Ad, right who
Speaker 3: apparently they said they, I mean these days they would
Speaker 3: be fired probably, but they said they reassigned them to
Speaker 3: like Greenland or something.
Speaker 2: Right because they had access to the two nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2: Apparently they had very high level clearance at noor Ad.
Speaker 3: Which is scary. And then they also found plans that
Speaker 3: they didn't act on, like the whole bomb plot in
Speaker 3: the movie was made up for dramatic purposes, but they
Speaker 3: did find links between for a plan to bomb a
Speaker 3: gay nightclub and another plan to steal automatic weapons from
Speaker 3: an army base, like an inside job. So it was,
Speaker 3: you know, it was valuable work they were doing, for sure.
Speaker 3: It just wasn't like we're going to take the Clan down,
Speaker 3: like I don't think it was the department's big, big
Speaker 3: job at the time.
Speaker 2: No, certainly not. And in the memoirs and in the
Speaker 2: movie too, the reason that's given for the undercover operation
Speaker 2: to end is because it started to become successful. Ron
Speaker 2: Stalwarth was nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of
Speaker 2: the Klan, like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take
Speaker 2: my job. Everybody likes you. You're really good at this,
Speaker 2: You're smart. You should lead the clan here and the
Speaker 2: police chief of Colorado Springs. So that's it, close it down,
Speaker 2: burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was
Speaker 2: worried about what a pr nightmare it would be if
Speaker 2: it got out that some of his detectives were in
Speaker 2: the Colorado Springs clan. But at the same time, what
Speaker 2: strikes me is odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez,
Speaker 2: this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado
Speaker 2: Springs Clan. Right, He's talking to David Duke, like, really
Speaker 2: that this could not be kind of blown up into
Speaker 2: a larger investigation or a larger staying or something like that.
Speaker 2: And then secondly, and Ron Stalwart himself addresses this, there's
Speaker 2: a very frequently a criticism of well, if this was
Speaker 2: such a big operation and they found all this stuff,
Speaker 2: why wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests?
Speaker 3: And say Duke says.
Speaker 2: Right, not just David Duke. Stalwars says also that that
Speaker 2: in law enforcement too, people question that, like why wasn't
Speaker 2: anyone arrested? And he said, it was an intel investigation
Speaker 2: and that's what they did, is they gathered stuff. But
Speaker 2: then he very rightly points out, like you said, like
Speaker 2: the fact that they prevented crossburnings alone makes it a
Speaker 2: worthwhile and valuable operation. I think just some people on
Speaker 2: the outside are saying, well, why wasn't why wasn't more done?
Speaker 2: Why didn't Moore come out of this? You know? Well,
Speaker 2: and I'm not quite sure what they're driving at, but
Speaker 2: there are you know, Stalwart brings that up in an
Speaker 2: interview I read with him like that, people do ask
Speaker 2: that and wonder about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Stalwarth is very proud of the fact that
Speaker 3: with the cross burnings. He was like, no, I can't
Speaker 3: remember the quote, but he said something about like, no
Speaker 3: children in Colorado Springs got to you know, no young
Speaker 3: black kids had to see crosses on fire during that
Speaker 3: eight or nine month period, and very proud of that,
Speaker 3: as he should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for real.
Speaker 3: So I mentioned the voice earlier and the fact that
Speaker 3: he had a different voice obviously than Chuck, and he
Speaker 3: said one time, only one time, and I think this
Speaker 3: was in the movie, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: It was? Actually no, it was I remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So one time in the whole investigation did someone say, like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, you sound different. Chuck had just been
Speaker 3: at a in person meeting, came back and then Stallworth
Speaker 3: wants to follow up on the phone with ken O'Dell
Speaker 3: about something right afterward. So he had just heard Chuck's
Speaker 3: voice for whatever this whole meeting and was talking to
Speaker 3: him and he was like, wait a minute, you sound different,
Speaker 3: what's going on? And he just pulled it off. He
Speaker 3: coughed and said he had a sinus infection, and ken
Speaker 3: O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you clear that
Speaker 3: up and gave him some good sinus medication advice.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, they definitely appeared in the movie.
Speaker 3: I mean, you could not make this thing up. You know,
Speaker 3: it's crazy, no for real.
Speaker 2: And apparently for a long time, Stalworth was saying like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just another job, it was just another operation.
Speaker 2: And I guess he told some fellow like law enforcement
Speaker 2: friends or whatever about it and they're like, dude, you
Speaker 2: this is a movie. You need to write this down,
Speaker 2: you need to get this out. There is a one
Speaker 2: in a million story. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation wise
Speaker 3: was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it,
Speaker 3: like he's the voice, but they're sending a white man like,
Speaker 3: it's I'm surprised he pulled it off for that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could totally see that one.
Speaker 3: Final thing that did not happen in real life but
Speaker 3: did happen in the movie. And this is what when
Speaker 3: you usually will change real life is to get a
Speaker 3: more satisfying ending. But Stalwarts did not, unfortunately, reveal his
Speaker 3: true identity to David Duke like he does to hilarious
Speaker 3: effect in the film. Unfortunately, No, I'll.
Speaker 2: See you learn that. He was saying, like, yeah, he
Speaker 2: just he didn't really talk about it until the two thousands,
Speaker 2: So David Duke didn't know until I guess the memoirs
Speaker 2: came out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, well, I guess we should talk
Speaker 3: about Spike Lee getting criticized. Boots Riley, director who I
Speaker 3: had on Movie Crush. By the way, I know what
Speaker 3: was his movie? Sorry to Bother You was his film
Speaker 3: that he made.
Speaker 2: No, I mean his pick for Movie Crush.
Speaker 3: His pick was a movie called Mishima, A Life in
Speaker 3: four Chapters. Okay, yeah, it was a great film and
Speaker 3: his like, his knowledge on movies was deep. He turned
Speaker 3: me onto a lot of cool things.
Speaker 2: I thought it for a very terrible second. You were
Speaker 2: saying his pick was his own movie, No No.
Speaker 3: But he you know, Boots does not hold back on
Speaker 3: what he thinks. And while you would think that he
Speaker 3: would be like, oh, no, I'm going to be a
Speaker 3: champion of Spike Lee and telling the story, he came
Speaker 3: out very publicly on Twitter and very intelligently criticized that.
Speaker 3: He didn't just bag on it. He wrote a big,
Speaker 3: long statement on exactly what he thought was wrong with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He basically said, look, man, if you take away
Speaker 2: all the embellishments that Spike Lee added to this movie,
Speaker 2: what you have as a guy who who's probably biggest assignment.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure where he got this, but he
Speaker 2: focused on that that stokely Carmichael thing and the fact
Speaker 2: that ron Stalworth had worked undercover to infiltrate the Black
Speaker 2: Power movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked
Speaker 2: on that for like three years, and that this clan
Speaker 2: thing was just a like a nine month thing. And
Speaker 2: he also criticized Spike Lee for making it making the
Speaker 2: movie seem like law enforcement and the Black Power movement
Speaker 2: came together to fight racism, right, and that that like
Speaker 2: that was a larger point or that that was historically
Speaker 2: accurate or something like that. It was a really interesting
Speaker 2: It was like a three page essay that he posted
Speaker 2: on Twitter that made some good points. He basically said,
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, it looks like ron Stalworth
Speaker 2: was working for co Intel Pro, which is the FBI's
Speaker 2: it was their their program to undermine groups, including Black
Speaker 2: Power group oops, which we mentioned it in the Black
Speaker 2: Panther episode. We did, and the Cointelpro definitely deserves its
Speaker 2: own episode. And it was it was ended officially in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. But I think Boots Riley's point was
Speaker 2: it might have been officially ended, but the work was
Speaker 2: still going on. And if this guy was infiltrating Black
Speaker 2: Power like groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly
Speaker 2: trying to break them up one way or another, probably
Speaker 2: using co Intel purposes or practices. And ron Stalworth, he
Speaker 2: had a pretty great quote in response to it. He said,
Speaker 2: I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in response to
Speaker 2: Boots Riley, and Spike Lee has no comment about it whatsoever,
Speaker 2: So who knows. But you make a good point that
Speaker 2: like he's he's he's not just giving like blind allegiance
Speaker 2: to anything.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, Spike did comment eventually.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was. He was in an interview, and the
Speaker 3: first thing he said was like, hey, I'm a I'm
Speaker 3: a young man of sixty one or something like that,
Speaker 3: and like, you know, young me might have kind of
Speaker 3: gotten into a war of words, but he's just not
Speaker 3: into that anymore. But he did say briefly something about, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to come out and say that all
Speaker 3: cops are racist and all cops do bad things, because
Speaker 3: they don't all do bad things. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: great cops. There's also bad cops. And he kind of
Speaker 3: just couched it in that and then was like, but
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not going to be really talking about
Speaker 3: this anymore.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I hadn't seen that he'd even had that comment. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting stuff, and it's a good movie at
Speaker 2: the very least, Oh for sure. You know, I think
Speaker 2: I think ron staal War's like, man, they made a
Speaker 2: movie about my story. That's pretty awesome, and at the
Speaker 2: very least, it's a pretty great movie. How about that?
Speaker 3: Totally totally, So if you you got anything else, I
Speaker 3: got nothing else.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about black Clansman. You
Speaker 2: should probab probably go see that movie. And I guess
Speaker 2: we probably should have said at the outset this episode
Speaker 2: is not an ad.
Speaker 3: Oh, of course not.
Speaker 2: We just liked the movie a lot.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean you could say it's an ad,
Speaker 3: but like, no one gave us money or asked us
Speaker 3: to do this. Sure, Okay, I'm endorsing it.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it as well.
Speaker 2: It has two thumbs up as it were. Yeah, rest
Speaker 2: in peace Roger Ebert and Jeane Ciskel two thumbs Okay.
Speaker 2: So if I already I already said that, how about
Speaker 2: some listener mail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna call this ping pong response from a
Speaker 3: former pro I'm nice. Hey, guys, want to commend you
Speaker 3: on the job you did covering a sport that you
Speaker 3: didn't have an ex extensive knowledge of. I'm a professional
Speaker 3: table tennis coach and former player. I started playing in college.
Speaker 3: Thought it was really good until I was coerced to
Speaker 3: go to a tournament at Princeton University about twenty years
Speaker 3: ago and I got destroyed. I didn't like that, so
Speaker 3: I saw it out to coach and the rest is history.
Speaker 3: You guys, clearly did a lot of research and to
Speaker 3: highlight the things that most novice players aren't aware of.
Speaker 3: But there were a few things I couldn't help but
Speaker 3: point out. Josh, you mentioned the components of the modern racket.
Speaker 3: You said the pimpled sign those are called pips are
Speaker 3: for spinning the ball, that the smooth side is for
Speaker 3: defensive play. But the opposite is actually true. Oh no,
Speaker 3: I didn't catch that because I would have pointed that out.
Speaker 3: I thought everyone knew that.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that.
Speaker 3: You get good spin on that smooth side, all right,
Speaker 3: for real? Oh yeah, yeah, it's grippy, all right, he said.
Speaker 3: The smooth side is very tacky, as in sticky, and that,
Speaker 3: combined with the sponge underneath, allows the ball to sink
Speaker 3: in just enough so that the taki service grips the
Speaker 3: ball and generates a lot of spin. Also, you can
Speaker 3: really have any combination of rubber that you want as
Speaker 3: long as it's ITTF approved. Players are not restricted to
Speaker 3: having one smooth side and one with pips, but one
Speaker 3: side does have to be read and the other black.
Speaker 3: Most defensive players use pips on their backhand because vary
Speaker 3: the spin that is coming back at you and it's
Speaker 3: very hard to read. Also, Chuck, you mentioned that defensive
Speaker 3: players are called chislers. They're actually called choppers as they
Speaker 3: chop the ball back with varying backspin. I've never heard
Speaker 3: the term chiselers. I'm wondering if it is extremely outdated.
Speaker 3: Maybe I bet you that was the gates ahead old
Speaker 3: research chizlers.
Speaker 2: That's something called in the twenties.
Speaker 3: He said, if you guys are ever in the Dunnellen,
Speaker 3: New Jersey area, stop by. We're there right now, stop
Speaker 3: by the Lily Yip Table Tennis Club and I'll gladly
Speaker 3: hook you guys up with the lesson.
Speaker 2: I will gladly humiliate you in person.
Speaker 3: And that is Thomas from Philly.
Speaker 2: Thanks Thomas, much appreciated. We like it when we are
Speaker 2: gently corrected because we like to be right, So thanks
Speaker 2: for that. If you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 2: let us know. I don't know something we got wrong
Speaker 2: about black clansmen. Let us know. You can find all
Speaker 2: of ours show links on stuffishould know dot com and
Speaker 2: has always send us an email to stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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