There are plenty of people, including good friends of mine, who are not racist, and who voted for Trump. A lot of people wanted a change from what they were accustom to for the last decades... they wanted a change of the status quo, a changing of the guard. And they were willing to overlook his misogyny, his racist or bigoted comments.
— Daryl Davis
Back in the day, prior to rock and roll, music halls, concert venues were segregated if they allowed black people in at all. You know, there were ropes that went around the sitting sections with signs hanging that would say, 'Sitting for white patrons only,' or 'Colored sitting only.'
Believe it or not, the best way to put somebody at ease or bring them to a level of trust is to know as much if not more about them than they know about themselves or the organization to which they belong.
I did not vote for Donald Trump and I do not support him but I believe that Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a long time. He's bringing out the country's ugliness. There's no turning a blind eye anymore.
I don't consider myself to be a racist, but to me there's not much difference between a black racist or a white racist.
Knowledge, information, wit, and the way you disseminate these attributes can often prove to be a more disarming weapon against an enemy or some with whom your ideology is in conflict, than violence or lethal weapons.
Music absolutely played a massive role in bridging many gaps in the racial divides I would encounter.
Over the past 30 years, I have come to know hundreds of white supremacists, from KKK members, neo-Nazis and white nationalists to those who call themselves alt-right. Some were good people with wrong beliefs, and others were bad people hellbent on violence and the destruction of those who were non-Aryan.
There's a difference between being ignorant and being stupid... For me, an ignorant person is someone who makes the wrong decision or a bad choice because he or she does not have the proper facts. If you give that person the facts and the proper information you have alleviated that ignorance, and they make the right decision.
When you seek to destroy somebody, all you do is empower them, because they feel like, 'you see? They don't want us to have our rights to feel the way we want to feel.' And they get more and more emboldened and more and more empowered.
A lot of the media says, 'oh, black musician converts X-number of Klansmen.' I never converted one. But over 200 have left that, the white supremacy movements, because I have been the impetus for that.
The three Klan leaders here in Maryland, Roger Kelly, Robert White, and Chester Doles - I became friends with each one of them - when the three Klan leaders left the Klan and became friends of mine, that ended the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Maryland.
We spend too much time talking about each other, at each other, past each other, and not enough time talking with each other.
If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy - it doesn't have to be about race, it could be about anything... you will find that you both have something in common. As you build upon those commonalities, you're forming a relationship and as you build about that relationship, you're forming a friendship.
Every racist that I know - and I know a lot of racists - every racist that I know voted for Donald Trump.
We would not have rock and roll without Chuck Berry, and when I first heard Chuck Berry, I fell in love with that music, and when I saw him, I changed my whole career trajectory that I was on as a kid.
We've simply been putting Band-Aids on the wounds of racism. We haven't drilled down to the bone to get to its source.
Am I going to vote for Trump? Absolutely not. I do not believe in his platform.
I try to bring out the humanity in people.
I have just about every book written on the Klan and I've read them all.
I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question: 'How can you hate me when you don't even know me.'
I was no stranger to racism. Having grown up a black person in the '60s and '70s, I knew that prejudice was common.
I've dealt with a lot of black supremacists as well as white supremacists, and supremacy of any kind is wrong, and I address both black and I address both white.
I have a former Baltimore City police officer's uniform and his robe and hood. He was the grand dragon, which means state leader. His day job, what paid his bills, he was a Baltimore City police officer, not an undercover officer in the Klan gathering intelligence, but a bona fide Klansmen on the Baltimore City police force.
There are a lot of well meaning white liberals. And a lot of well meaning black liberals. But you know what? When all they do is sit around and preach to the choir it does absolutely no good. If you're not a racist it doesn't do any good for me to meet with you and sit around and talk about how bad racism is.
The most important thing I learned is that when you are actively learning about someone else you are passively teaching them about yourself.
If you have an adversary, you don't have to respect what they're saying, but respect their right to say it.
I knew as much about the Klan, if not more than many of the Klan people that I interviewed. When they see that you know about their organization, their belief system, they respect you.
My parents were U.S. Foreign Service, so I spent a lot of time you know, overseas in various countries around the world, you know, I was an American Embassy brat and today, as a professional musician, I travel all over this country and around the world.
Chuck Berry had a very profound impact on me. The man was a genius.
I deal with Klansmen and white supremacists all the time.
I don't believe that Donald Trump is a racist, per se. But some of the things that he does, some of the rhetoric that he uses, attracts racists and that sets the tone. And of course, you are judged by the company you keep.
There has always been a great deal of racism in the U.S. before and after Obama.
There have been some incidents in which I was threatened and a couple of instances where I had to physically fight. Fortunately, I won in both instances.
I am not so naive as to think everyone will change. There are certainly those who will go to their graves as hateful, violent racists.
A stupid person is someone who has the facts, who has the proper information, and still makes the wrong decision.
There are many controversial topics out there - abortion, nuclear weapons, the 2nd Amendment, guns, whatever, the war in Iraq. You're going to be on one side, somebody's going to be on the other side. Invite those people to the table. Sit down and talk.
I'd had a racist experience as a child at age 10, where people had thrown rocks at me and bottles. I didn't understand. And all it was, was because of the color of my skin, nothing I had done, nothing I had said.
Some black people who have not heard me interviewed or read my book jump to conclusions and prejudge me... I've been called Uncle Tom. I've been called an Oreo.
Keep in mind, when two enemies are talking, they're not fighting, they're talking. They might be yelling and screaming, but at least they're talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.
People learn racism through dialogue. Somebody tells them about it. So if you can learn it through dialogue, you can also unlearn it through dialogue.
I decided to go around the country and sit down with Klan leaders and Klan members to find out: How can you hate me when you don't even know me?
