Racism is a cancer. Black people have been dealing with this ever since we landed on these shores in shackles and chains. If we've been doing it for that long, those of us who are impatient need to be a little more patient and keep on addressing those things, not ignoring it. White people need to do the same thing. Don't turn a blind eye to it.
— Daryl Davis
Music teaches us how to work together, how to harmonize.
Hate cultures are not a thing of the past. They're a continuing problem and one cannot blame presidencies for this. Racism in the U.S. began way back, before the time of Abraham Lincoln.
At the end, ignorance is the source of biases. If we cure that, there's nothing to fear and hate.
I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.
In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.
I don't have any brothers and sisters, so I always relied on my parents to guide me or answer questions.
My father was the first black Secret Service agent. He wanted to get into the FBI but J. Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the FBI, was a racist and he said we don't want any black people.
Everybody likes music. And rock 'n' roll - that was the music that brought white youth and black youth together for the first time in American music history.
Racism is a cancer. You cannot ignore it and it'll go away. If you ignore cancer, it simply metastasizes and consumes the whole body.
They've changed the name from white supremacy to white separatists, to white nationalists, to alt-right. It's the same thing. A rose by any other name is still a rose.
You cannot hate the hate out of a person. You cannot beat the hate out of a person. But you can love it out of a person.
If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.
When you make friends with me, you have a friend for life.
It's very important that we learn how to communicate... and learn to respect each other.
If you have an adversary, an opponent with an opposing point of view, give that person a platform, regardless of how extreme it may be.
1983 - Country music had made a resurgence in this country so I joined a country band. I was the only black guy in the band and consequently, usually the only black guy in many of the places where we played.
Always keep the lines of communication open with your adversaries.
I came into music kind of late in life - until I was 17 I wanted to be a spy, wanted to be James Bond, so I had to learn rather quickly and practice longer than most people did to play catch up.
I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.
Antifa is now the one wearing the bandanas across their face or the masks. A lot of these groups - let's take Black Lives Matter, let's take Antifa, let's take the Ku Klux Klan - none of these groups today are centralized. They're all autonomous... It's the same thing with Antifa.
I've heard stories of pickup bands that can't follow, but here's the thing: If you want to play with Chuck Berry, you listen to his greatest hits and learn the format of the songs, but don't try to play it note-for-note.
I'm always thinking 'how can I blend something?' whether it's musical instruments, voices, or the people around me.
It doesn't sound rational for a Klansman to sit down to dinner with a black man. What you're overlooking is, to be racist is to be irrational. So, they are already irrational, and irrational people do irrational things. That's why a Klansman will sit down with me.
There's no more denying it, or saying we live in a post-racist society. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see all these hate crimes.
The most powerful tools you can have are information and knowledge.
You don't change the system without changing the people behind the system.
When was 'again?' Was it back when I was drinking from a separate water fountain? Was it when I couldn't eat in that restaurant over there?... 'Make America Great Again' - before I had equality?
Invite your enemies to sit down and join you. One small thing you say might give them food for though, and you will learn.
Music is indeed the universal language and unites people.
A Klan member is not stamped from a standard cookie cutter. They come from all walks of life and various education levels and environmental situations which have led to their decision to join the Klan. The one common denominator that all share is lack of exposure to others who may not look like them or believe as they do.
Our society can only become one of two things, it can be become what we let it become or it can become what we make it, and I choose the latter.
It was incomprehensible to me that someone who had never seen me before, someone who knew absolutely nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin.
You can legislate behavior but you cannot legislate belief. Patience is what it takes. But patience doesn't mean sitting around on your butt waiting for something to happen.
The Ku Klux Klan is as American as baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet.
If you were to talk to somebody from Georgia you would understand what he's saying, he wouldn't sound like your next-door neighbor in Montana, but other than that it's the same language, just with a few little different nuances. That's just like country and blues, or blues and rock 'n' roll. They're the same music with different accents.
I wanted to visit India because I have always wanted to explore the country. More than that, I have always found the caste system in India identical to the racism in the United States.
I didn't vote for Trump, but I do believe his coming to power has done its own bit of good. People are coming out to protest against issues they so far didn't talk about - sexual abuse, gun control, racism - because a bunch of crazies are out propagating them.
Rock 'n' roll was uniting black kids and white kids, and rock 'n' roll is not being given credit... for being just as important to the civil rights movement as the activists.
When I experienced racism here in my own country, I was not prepared for it. I had never heard the word racism.
He spoke nine languages. You know some people can just pick up an instrument and play. My father was like that with languages.
Venues had segregated seating - but when Chuck Berry fused together blues, boogie-woogie and country music, it caused people not to be able to sit still. They bounced up out of their seats, knocking over ropes, dancing together.
I had to keep myself in check. Like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa.' I'd never sat in a room, five feet away from a Klansman putting on his damn robe. That's what freaked me out a little bit. But I wanted to see a Klansman.
I've been playing music professionally, full time since 1980 when I graduated college at the age of 22.
You're not going to beat the meanness out of a mean dog. You start beating a mean dog, it's gonna become more mean. You start beating racists, they're gonna become more racist.
I respect someone's right to air their views whether they are wrong or right.
In most of my encounters with Klan members, we would discuss reasons for why they were members in the first place.
What we do too much of is, we talk about each other, we talk at each other, or we talk past each other. I have found that talking with each other is much more effective.
When something bothers me, I try to learn about it.
Music is my profession but learning more about racism on all sides of the tracks was my obsession.
