2018

Speaker: Daryl Davis

Title: Klan-Destine Relationships: How & Why A Black Man Befriended White Supremacists

Photo: Maria Silvano

From DNL14 Infiltration: Challenging Supremacism, September 7–8, 2018.

Keynote by Daryl Davis (R&B and Blues Musician, Author, Actor, USA), moderated by Anna Müller (Mobile Counselling Team against Right-wing Extremism /MBR – Mobile Beratung gegen Rechtsextremismus in Berlin, DE)

African-American R&B and Blues musician Daryl Davis met a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in a bar in 1983. Since then, in his efforts to improve race relations, he has engaged with and befriended members of the KKK – including the Grand Dragon of the KKK in Maryland, Roger Kelly. He has interviewed more than twenty members of the KKK, writing a book (Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, 1998) and becoming the protagonist of a film about his story (Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America, 2016). Following the question: “Why do you hate me when you know nothing about me?", his investigation dealt with misconceptions about black people, which he proved came mostly from intense brainwashing of KKK members during their youth. Davis claims to be responsible for helping to dismantle the KKK in Maryland because things "fell apart" after he began making inroads with its members there. In the context of increased supremacist ideologies and right wing extremism, the Disruption Network Lab invites Davis to speak about racism and his interactions with persons holding racist beliefs.