Daryl Davis' Tense First Meeting with a Klan Member | Joe Rogan

So I wanted to meet the, I'll start in Maryland where I live. I want to start with the clan leader from Maryland. Now you could have several different clan groups in the same state and they are rivals with each other and you can have chapters of those same clan groups within your state. So this guy named Roger Kelly was the grand dragon for the state of Maryland for this guy's clan group and Roger Kelly at the time had the largest clan group in Maryland. How many members? They don't give out numbers but Roger had probably just over 200 which was a very high number for that time period. Some clan groups only have 10 members. Some you know they have an internet presence but only one guy sitting in his basement putting out something. But anyway this guy, I want him to introduce me to Roger Kelly. I want Roger to be my first interview. And he was terrified. He said no I can't do it Darrell. We both will get in trouble. I said but you're not in the clan anymore. He said it doesn't matter. I cannot take a black man to the grand dragon. So he was concerned genuinely for my safety as well as his own. And I said well look why don't you give me Mr. Kelly's address and phone number and I will go to his house and talk to him. He would not do that. I begged and pleaded for 20 minutes. He finally gave me Mr. Kelly's address and phone number. On the condition that I not tell Mr. Kelly where I got it. And I said okay. And then he warned me he said Darrell. Well that guy could crack under pressure. Yeah. Oh yeah a lot of them. Oh I want to tell you why he got banished. Okay. But that's coming later. Okay he warned you? Yeah he warned me. And he said Darrell do not go to Roger Kelly's house. He'll kill you. And then he said there's a bar up in Thurmont, Maryland. Now you know Thurmont, Maryland. You don't know it for the Klan but that was one of their headquarters. You know Thurmont, Maryland because it's also the home of Camp David, the presidential retreat. And the headquarters for the Klan is right down the road. That's hilarious. Yeah. And Thurmont at the time was an all white town. Anytime a black person moved in or an interracial couple or a gay couple somehow mysteriously a cross would be burned in their yard and boom they'd move right out. Now that does not mean that every person in Thurmont is in the Klan because they're not. In fact most white people up there wanted the Klan gone but that's where it was headquartered. So he said there was a bar up there where they hang out every Saturday night. And if I go to that bar I'm sure to find Roger Kelly. And you know unless they're out of town rallying somewhere. He says but I don't guarantee you that Roger will even talk to you but you're safer to approach him in a public place than Gornor's property. Did he give you a photograph of him? How'd you find him? No, no. I knew Roger Kelly looked like this. He was always in the newspaper on the news you know being interviewed something like that. I never met him but I knew you know his image. So he drew me a little map how to get to this place. And so it's on Saturday night. Let me turn that thing off. And he says do not approach him on his own property. I said all right. So you know I'm a musician. I'm working Saturday nights. I can't go you know go chasing the Klan on Saturday nights. Just a hobby. Yeah. So at that point it was now it's a full-time profession. I called my secretary who books my band. I said you know do I have any Sundays off? I figure Sunday is still part of the weekend. Maybe he hangs out there on a Sunday too. So she found me a couple Sundays. And I said okay I'm gonna go find this Roger Kelly guy. She goes well I want to go with you. Now here's the problem. She's white. Not that I have a problem with that. But a black man with a white woman walking into a Klan bar. Right. Could be more of a problem. Yeah. You might find him sooner than you want. Yeah. I said I said you know Mary and she said no no I want to go. I said all right you know you got your own risk. She said all right. So we drove up there this particular Sunday evening. It was about an hour and a half from my house. And my guy gave me perfect directions. There's the place right there. Boom. We locked the car. Walked up these little steps. And I told her I said look I'm gonna walk in first. You walk right in behind me. If I turn around and face you start running and I'll be behind you. And she says all right let's go. So we walk in about 7 30 on a Sunday evening. The place was practically empty. I would say maybe no more than six or seven people in there. A couple guys in the back playing pool. A guy or two sitting at the bar. And the guy had told me this was a Klan bar. And what he meant by Klan bar is the Klan doesn't own it. That's where they hang out. He described it to me. That when you walk in the door to your left will be a row of booths. And the first two booths closest to the door where you come in are reserved for the Klan. So I looked over there and nobody was sitting there. So I'm looking around to see if I recognize Roger Kelly. And I didn't see anybody who looked like him. Which did not mean that some of these people weren't Klan. But I figured you know what? And to my right was a long bar. Behind the bar was a mirror. And Scotch taped to the mirror was a picture. And an article from the Washington Post newspaper had a picture of Roger Kelly. They'd interviewed him about something. The NAACP was suing them over some kind of cross burning ceremony or something. And I recognized the article. I said wow. And there's a big Confederate flag on the back wall like you have the US flag right there. So I knew I was in the right place or the wrong place. Put it by now you want to look at it right. So I didn't see anybody who looked like Roger Kelly. I figured you know I drove an hour and a half to get up here. You know I don't want to go home empty handed. But I didn't want to just walk up to somebody and say hey excuse me sir are you in the Klan? So I said you know Mary and I are standing in the middle of this bar basically looking stupid. And not knowing what to do. So I said come on Mary. Let's go over there and sit in one of those first two booths. Because if the Klan is in here they will come to us. And then we'll know. And then we can ask them hey we want to see Roger Kelly. So we went over there and we sat down. Nobody bothered us. Everything was cool. Eventually we migrated over to the bar. I chatted up the guy sitting next to me like I was lost in some directions. Very nice. Gave me directions. We failed. So we left. The next morning Mary worked out of my house. I gave her Roger Kelly's number Monday morning. I said give him a call. I said tell him that you're working for somebody who's writing a book on the Klan. Would he consent to sitting down with your boss and giving him an interview? However do not tell Mr. Kelly that I'm black. If he asks you know don't lie to him. But don't allude to it. Don't give him reason to. He'll be curious. She understood. And the reason why I did not want him to know that was A, I figured if he knew that he meant I'd give me the interview. But if he agreed to do the interview then obviously he would see that I'm black when he meets me. And he could decide right then and there if he wanted to continue it or not. But I want him to see me first. Secondly if he agreed to do the interview knowing that I was black he may have different answers prepared in the interim than he would have for a white interviewer as opposed to a black interviewer. So I wanted to be spontaneous candid. So she understood and she called him and he agreed to do the interview. So we set it up for the motel above the Silver Dollar Lounge up there in Frederick, Maryland at 515 on a Sunday afternoon. And Mary and I got there, oh man, I don't know, several hours early. I gave her some money, sent her down the hall to get some soda pop out of the machine, put it in the ice bucket, fill it with ice, get it all cold. So I could offer Mr. Kelly a beverage, a cold beverage. I had no idea what this man would do once he laid eyes on me and saw that I was black. Would he come in the room? Would he attack me? Would he walk away? But in any event I wanted to be hospitable. So she got the soda pop, put it in the ice bucket, set it on the dresser. Now just by happenstance the way the room is laid out, if you are standing in the hallway, in the doorway of the room, looking into the room, you cannot see who's in the room. You have to literally walk in the door and turn to your right and the room is laid out back there. So there's no way you can know who's in the room standing in the hallway. And so I took advantage of that. I took the lamp table, took the lamp off, and put it in the most obscure corner of the room. I put a chair on one side for me and a chair on the other side for Mr. Kelly. And I had a little bag beside me, a little duffel bag. And in my bag I had a cassette recorder, blank cassette tapes, and a copy of the Bible because the Ku Klux Klan claims to be a Christian organization. And they claim that the Bible preaches racial separation. Now I've read through the Bible. I've never seen that in there. So I want to be able to pull out my Bible when he brings it up and say here, Mr. Kelly, show me please in this King James version, chapter and verse where it says blacks and whites must be separate. So I'm all prepared, right? Right on time at 5.15, knock on the door. I'm seated there where you can't see me until you come in the room. Mary hops up and by the way, Mary's white. And as I mentioned before, so she goes around the corner, opens the door, in walks what is known as the Grand Nighthawk. Nighthawk in Klan terminology means bodyguard security. So a Grand Nighthawk would be a bodyguard. Their names are so ridiculous. Cyclops and dragons and wizards and Nighthawks. Oh, it goes on and on. It goes on and on. A Grand Club, a Grand Clavy, Grand Magi, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, so the Grand Nighthawk, which means bodyguard of the Grand Dragon, like an Imperial Nighthawk, we can be the bodyguard of the Imperial Wizard. In walks this Grand Nighthawk. He's wearing military camouflage. And on one side of his chest is that Klan emblem, that red circle, white cross, blood drop. On the other side are the initials KKK. Embroidered on his barrette is said, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. And on his hip, he had a semi-automatic handgun and a holster. He comes in and Mr. Kelly is walking directly behind him in a dark blue suit and tie. And when the Nighthawk turned the corner and saw me, he just froze. And Mr. Kelly did not realize that his Nighthawk had stopped short and he slammed into his back and knocked him forward. And so they're stumbling around, regaining their balance and looking all around the room. And I'm just watching them and I could see the apprehension in their faces. You know, I could read it. They were thinking, did the desk clerk give us the right room number? You know, or is this an ambush and what's going on here? So I stood up and I displayed the palms of my hands as to say, hey, I'm unarmed. And I walked forward. I stuck up my right hand. I said, hi, Mr. Kelly. I'm Darrell Davis. And he shook my hand. He shook my hand and the Nighthawk shook my hand. So, so far, so good. I'm doing well. I said, come on in. Come on in. Have a seat, please. Mr. Kelly sat down even better. And the Nighthawk stood at attention that Mr. Kelly is right. So I'm going to sit down opposite of them, right? And Mr. Kelly says to me, Mr. Davis, do you have any form of identification? I said, sure. I produced my wallet and I handed him my driver's license. He looked at it and he goes, oh, you live on Second Street in Silver Spring. Now, this had me a little concerned. Why is this man reading my street address? All he has to do is look at my name and look at my picture, match it up to me and give me back my license. Here he is. I'm looking at my address. Is he going to come burn across in my lawn? What's up? So I did not want to let him know that he had, you know, unnerved me a little bit. But I wanted to let him know under no circumstances are you to come to my house uninvited with any nefarious intentions. So I said to him, I said, yes, Mr. Kelly, that is where I live. And you live at, and I named his house number and his street that the former guy given me. That way I was implying, hey, you know, you know where I live. I know where you live. If you come visit me, I'm going to come visit you. So we're going to confine all this visiting to this motel room. So he smiled. He nodded his head like he understood. And I did not find out that day. It was several months down the road that I had been presumptuous. I had no reason to fear Mr. Kelly coming to my house to do anything stupid. What had happened was one of his clan members lived right down the road from me. I didn't know that. And Mr. Kelly would have to travel down my street to get into that neighborhood where this clan member lived. He simply recognized the name of the street. That was it. Pure coincidence. So he wasn't trying to threaten you. No, not at all. Not at all. So, you know, and today that same clan member is in a federal prison. He'll be there for a long time. He would later commit a hate crime, which landed him in the federal penitentiary. So anyway, we got on with this interview. And within 10 minutes, Mr. Kelly let me know why he could hate people like me. Black people are inferior. We are prone to crime. We're criminals. That is why there are more blacks in prison than whites. Now, that's a half truth. There are indeed more blacks in prison than white people. It's not because we're prone to crime, like he said. It's because of inequity in our judicial system, where whites in the same predicament either don't get the same jail time or don't go to jail or whatever. Anyway, so I'm a criminal. I also said that black people are lazy. We don't want to work. While we prefer to scam the government welfare system, we're looking for handouts and freebies and all that where white people, you know, they work, et cetera. And also this book called The Bell Curve had just recently come out. And- Charles Murray. Yeah, you know the one. Yeah, very controversial book. Exactly. So, you know, he had jumped on that and he said, well, you know, it's a known fact, you know, they say the world's biggest authority is they, you know, you never see who they is, right? They say that, you know, black people have smaller brains than white people. And that's why their IQ is not as high. So I guess the bigger the brain, the more intelligent you are. So now I'm sitting there listening to this guy tell me that I'm a criminal and I'm lazy and on welfare and my brain is smaller than his. What he was saying was indeed offensive. But here's the difference between me and most other people. I did not take offense to it. I tell you why I don't take offense to it. Why should I be offended by somebody who knows nothing about me? He only met me 10 minutes ago. He sees the color of my skin and has made this assessment. So why should I take offense to somebody who's telling a lie? I just let him roll on with it. Where did you develop this kind of clarity? It's very unusual to not be offended when someone's judging you instantly and saying disparaging things about everyone that looks anything like you. Just right off the cuff, freely right in front of you. How did you develop this clarity to just not be offended by that? Because it didn't make sense what he was saying. Of course. So I figured, you know, how can I be offended by somebody who's all twisted? Right. You know? Who obviously doesn't have the foresight to see that he's wrong. I want to learn more about this, where it's coming from. And so now see, that's what usually stops a conversation. And then people get into combat. Yes. You know? And then it goes nowhere. So I was not offended by it, so I didn't roll on with it. And then when he finished, you know, and he was proud of him explaining to me, you know, why the stance. I said, you know, well, Mr. Kelly, I mean, you know, I'm going to be straight up with you. I don't have a criminal record. I have never been on welfare. I've never measured my brain, but I'm sure it's the same size as anybody else's. You know, he's, you know, whatever. It would go on. Well, every now and then the cassette would run out of tape, right? And I'd reach down into my bag and pull out a fresh cassette. Or Mr. Kelly would pound the table. Mr. Davis, the Bible says, I'd reach down, pull out the Bible. Every time I'd reach down like this to get the Bible or the cassette out of the bag, the night hawk would reach up onto his hip. Right? Now, that was cool. I mean, I got that. That's his job. His job is to protect his boss. He has no idea what's in my bag. That's a little distracting though, isn't it? Well, yeah. But, you know, I realized that these people are afraid of me. Right. Okay. So, you know, I have to be cool. I'm not afraid of them. Right. So I have to be cool, but be transparent. All right. So, you know, he's doing his job. And just like, you know, when you get pulled over, you know, maybe you don't get pulled over as much as I do, right, by the cops at night. But, you know, I can tell you right now, you know, when you get pulled over and a cop tells you to get your license or whatever, and it's in the glove box and you reach, he gets a little more tighter on his hand. He's protecting himself. So the night hawk was doing that. And I got that. So, you know, this kept happening. And after a while, he realized there was no threat in the bag. And I went in and out of the bag. Night hawk didn't move. He was relaxed. Just over an hour into this interview, there was a sudden, a very quick, I mean, less than a second noise in the room. Which at that, that was it. And it happened so fast out of nowhere that my ear could not discern what it was. It just came out of the blue. And I'm sitting closer than you and I are right now, because the table was smaller to Mr. Kelly. And the night hawk was here. And Mr. Kelly's right there. And I flew up out of my chair, hit the table. Because my ear could not discern what the noise was, I perceived it to be an ominous, threatening noise. And I knew, I knew for a fact that Mr. Kelly had made this noise. Where did it come from? Why did he make it? And how did I know that he made it? I knew that because I didn't make it. So, you know, if you, if you don't want to accept responsibility or you know you're not responsible, what do you do? You assign blame. And so I flew up out of my chair and hit the table. And my mind was racing. What did I just do? What did I just say to cause Mr. Kelly to go off and make some threatening noise? I instantly put everything in perspective. We're enemies. He's the head of the Klan. I'm a black guy. And now, you know, and then I heard that former Klansman's voice in my head. Daryl, do not fool with Roger Kelly. He will kill you. So I didn't want to die. And in that split second, I have gone into survival mode. And when you fear for your life, that's what you do. What was the noise? I'm going to tell you in a second. Yeah, that was it. And because it was unexpected and it was so short, I couldn't discern it, you know, I went into self-protect mode. And I can hit the table. Well, when you fear for your life, as I said, you know, you go into survival mode. And in survival mode, you know, you're only you can only do like one of four things. Some people, they just pass out. They faint because the fear is so great. Their brain cannot process it. And it shuts down and they pass out. Other people, their muscles contract and they get tense and they can't move. And you can be punching them, kicking them, and they won't even be deflecting the blows. They're all constricted. That's called paralysis by fear that you're too afraid to move. The third thing people will do is to run away from wherever the fear is. And that is your best option. When something scares you that bad, take off, separate yourself as quickly as you can from that fear, but as much distance between you and the fear as you can. And that would have been my choice had it been an option. But it was not an option for me because you cannot outrun a bullet in a motel room, right? So I was not armed. My secretary was not armed. The only person who I knew for sure who was armed was a Nighthawk. You know, you can see his gun right there. And I didn't know if Mr. Kelly had a weapon up under his jacket or not. All I knew was, I don't want to die today. So I chose the fourth option, which was to do a preemptive strike. You get them before they get you. So when I flew out of my chair, I was going to dive across the table. I was going to grab Mr. Kelly, grab the Nighthawk, and slam them down to the ground and take away the Nighthawk's gun. Whoa. No, it was going to happen that quickly. Okay. I think pretty fast. Sometimes a little too fast. But I'm glad I hit the table because I'm looking right into his eyes, trying to figure out like, what did you do? I didn't say one word to this guy, but my eyes had locked with his eyes. It was like, I could see right through him. And I let my eyes do the talking. I knew he could hear my eyes. My eyes were shouting at him saying, what did you just do? Well, his eyes had fixated on my eyes. He didn't say a word either. But I could read his eyes. His eyes are saying to me, what did you just do? And the Nighthawk had his hand on his gun looking at both of us like, what do either one of you all just do? Mary was sitting to my left on top of the dresser because there were no more chairs. And she realized what had happened. And she began explaining it to us when it happened again. The ice in the ice bucket had begun to melt. Oh, Jesus. And the cans shifted down the ice. That was it. So the tension was so thick that the ice in the bucket wasn't just like a normal, like if there was ice in the bucket right now, it'd be like, oh, it was just noise. You were just on edge. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the cans had just fallen down the ice. How long? And you'd been talking for an hour? Yeah. Now they'd been sitting there before Mr. Kelly came in. Okay. And we'd forgotten about it. Right. I offered him a drink when he first got there. And he said, no. But what I was going to get to was like, so you're talking to him for an hour. And in that hour is the tension. The tension is not being alleviated at all. He's explaining everything to you. He's telling you his theories. You're being very calm and just letting him speak. Yeah. But you are still so on edge just being across from this guy that that sound. Right. Because it came out of nowhere. You know, it came out of nowhere. And I mean, yeah, you know, the tension had deescalated, all that kind of stuff, as we got more into the hour. But I think, you know, we each were aware, you know, this is not a normal situation. Yeah. You know, black kind of clan leader. So, you know, each one was still, you know, a little wary of the other kind of thing. Right. But we were mutually respectful. Okay. So then it happened again. And, you know, we began laughing. We began laughing, all of us, at how ignorant. We had all been. I won't say that this was a learning moment, but it was a teaching moment. And the learning would come later. The, what was taught was this. All because some foreign, an underscore highlight circle, the word foreign entity of which we were ignorant, that being the bucket of ice cans of soda, entered into our little comfort zone via the noise that it made. We became fearful and accusatory of each other. So the lesson taught is ignorance breeds fear. We fear those things we don't understand. All right. If you do not keep that fear in check, that fear in turn will escalate. And breed hatred because we hate those things that frighten us. If you don't check that hatred, it in turn will escalate and breed destruction. We want to destroy those things that we hate. Why? Because they frighten us. But guess what? They may have been harmless and we were just ignorant and we saw the whole chain unravel to almost completion. The last component being destruction. Stopped just short of that. Had I pounced across the table and hurt one of them or had the Nighthawk drawn his gun and shot one of us, you know, that, that would have been the destruction. Unfortunately, that did not happen. We did see that, that whole chain unravel to completion. Three years ago on August 12th, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, okay, which is like two hours from my house on August 12th, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, there was a lot of ignorance in Charlottesville. There was a lot of fear in Charlottesville. There was a lot of hatred in Charlottesville. And what did it culminate in? It culminated in destruction when a white supremacist got inside his vehicle and drove full force into a crowd of counter protesters trying to murder them. He succeeded in injuring 20 and murdering a young lady named Heather Heyer. So that whole chain is there. If you want to solve this problem of racism, we need to stop focusing on the symptoms. Don't worry about the fear. Don't worry about the hatred. Those are just symptoms. That's like putting a bandaid on cancer. You got to go down to the bone and treat it at its source. The source of all this is ignorance. Ignorance can be cured. The cure for ignorance is called education. So you fix the ignorance, there's nothing to fear because you fear what you don't know. When you cure the ignorance, you know something. There's nothing to fear. If there's nothing to fear, then there's nothing to hate. If there's something to hate, there's nothing to destroy. So we need to focus on the ignorance and we address it with exposure and education and conversation. We spend way too much time in this country talking about the other person, talking at the other person, talking past the other person. Why not just spend a little bit of time talking with the other person?