Stories were news coming up in twenty five minutes time ill see you then coming up next its the strain. I am finding ok i really could beat out anywhere in the stream down davies is a black musician who spent thirty years in such a White Supremacist Organization and tell us about it on todays show. To our come over and join us welcome to the strain where you get settlements im going to tell our audience a little bit more about you at how has an unusual approach to tackling racism hes on a Lifelong Mission to befriend members of the ku klux klan and along the way he says a couple hundred of them have left after making friends with him joining darwin as studio Scott Sheppard a former leader of the clyde who turned his back on the organization partly due to his friendship with darell who he now calls a brother gentleman brothers welcome just in my introduction alone people who dont know you dont know your story of going to be. Amazed by it i want to show them a little clip from a film called accidental sees a clip about a documentary about your story and your mission to befriend members of the ku klux klan so im going with an imperial wizard called frank have a look at this it shows you what dowe does. Really great absolute zero. Ive known frank for a little over three years now i consider trying to be my friend i consider daryl to be my friend as well we met through some one was want to do an interview cya think we talked for three months even before the interview we had a lot of conversations with each other felt like hey this is somebody i can relate to. That what happened to a long man as a child role do you want to reach out to not just people from im not a critic but to really make something of a great from a Different Community well first of all you know were all human beings but i had an upbringing unlike most of my american peers my parents were u. S. Foreign service so at an early age back in the one nine hundred sixty s. We were assigned to various countries abroad you know youre there for two years come back home for a few months in the country for two years etc so while i was overseas i turned to International Schools my classes were filled with other kids from nigeria italy france japan germany anybody who had an embassy there all of their kids we all want the same school thats how i grew up thats all i knew but when i would come home that here to my own country i would either be in all black schools or black and white schools depending upon whether i was going to the still segregated or the newly integrated school and there was not the amount of diversity in the classroom here that i had overseas so overseas i was literally living twelve to fifteen years into the future because that scenario had yet to come here so i was already prepared for diversity of multiculturalism and so it was a Culture Shock for me in my own country where people not accepting somebody for something as ridiculous as their religious beliefs or the color of their skin. There is a difference though between that Culture Shock and then taking that extra step and saying i want to hang out with k. K. K. No not really because there are a lot of people who dress like this who dress like you you know who have that same belief as the people who wear the robes and the hoods used dont know it you may see them every day in their regular clothes or on the job but its not so much the dress well whats important is that we get to know the persons heart and their mind so it didnt bother me because i was used to all kinds of different robes you know some people are more expressive about their views than others so we just keep it hidden but it did not faze me i want to know about those views and say look you know ive been around people from all over the world and at the end of the day guess what i found out theyre all human you know darrell for those of you know those of our viewers who may not know in addition to this work youre also a pretty prominent blues musician and you started the show with a little boogie woogie so i want to bring in the suite here this is a black populace and she says Darrell Davis is a black musician known for deprogramming White Supremacists and its a great example of why Cultural Appropriation matters im struck by how frequently White Supremacy is rooted in ignorance about the contributions of nonwhites to well everything so this is a tweet thats been circulated online explain for us what the link is between what you were doing at the top of the show and the work that you do in your off time ok and one of the one of things that was an impetus for this. That style of music that i was playing that is a black style of music we created the first forms of American Music the blues rock n roll gospel you know and even Hank Williams sr the father of Country Music learned to play guitar from a black street blues guitar player imogen alabama so at one point i was playing in a country band back in the eightys and i was and i was in an all white place the band was all white i was just the only black person in the place and on the break a gentleman came over to me and expressed how much he enjoyed the news well spring was that same style opened up with and then he made the remark that this was the first time hed ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis which you know speaks to what the the tweet says and i had to educate him on the origin of Jerry Lee Lewis is music the guy did not believe me and i told him you know jerry lewis is a very good friend of mine hes told me himself where he learned to play the guy didnt buy it but he want to buy me a drink and so i dont drink alcohol but he got me a cranberry juice and he takes his glass the clinks my glass and chairs me and then he makes another announcement he says this is the first time hed ever sat down with a black man and had a drink and i was naive i wasnt sure where this was going you know why how is how is that possible you know i sat down with thousands of people all in the race and i asked him why and to prod him and then finally he says im a member of the ku klux klan and at first i did not believe him so but it turned out that he was a member he put out his card and it to me and i stopped laughing but we struck up a relationship he was fascinated how a black guy could play what he thought was white music and and i was fascinated as to how he never sat down to talk to a black guy so thats how it started im shouting i kept it as a protest at history. Carol all right angela venet rock n roll right there. St louis you might recognize this expresident but back here that are all what from your music background do you channel in order to talk to people who are k. K. K. White supremacy racists what are you using what are you drawing on well you know everybody likes music so theres a as a Common Ground you know people may have different political beliefs or different you know the leanings but everybody likes music so thats a Common Ground but also in musical terms as a band leader on the stage its my job to take the different instruments whether theyre vocals or piano saxophone guitar bass drums and blend them in a harmony to have a good sound so i just carry that job when im off stage as well i tried to blend people in society and get along scot i would say honestly cowley that very first time that you came across cairo and what you thought about him first then the came across darrell. First off i had heard about darryl you know many years ago when i was inside playing and ill be honest i thought hes a nut case what do you what do you heard well i just started eating read the things he was doing going around turn talk klansmen and i was in a case because. Approaching klansmen the way you did because you know theres some pretty dangerous people out there all right and then and then course. No word or didnt think about their of all alone time and few years later i came across a Discovery Channel program and contacted their laughter to solve it and we struck up a conversation and and decided darryl said you know music music played a big part in it because i came from a town in mississippi indianola mississippi which is also the home of b. B. Keen and it kind of gave us the conversation i have in it and it didnt build from it. Who thought you of course have your own pretty fascinating backstory i do have a couple of tweets on on you also relationship these would be how you were brought up so this is a tweet from sarah she says are people who are members of the k. K. K. Brought up at a young age to fear other races or to be experience something to make them fearful and give a part two to that another person who says what was the common theme in the reason why people are you in this case join the k. K. K. Well i think basically of course the reason our joan and i think its come in pretty much as a common is a common denominator with denominator with other people that joined and of course i grew up in a very dysfunctional family and you know with alcohol it father but i must say i take full responsibility for what i did in a bad decisions ive made and im not blaming anyone but myself but there were some contributors are that you know sent me off in the wrong direction i had low selfesteem i didnt like myself i didnt like the new one i just i was looking for place to belong and feedin and course been from the area of the country and mississippi where i was from during those years you know there was you know the integration into marches going around and. Right into you know the belief you know after a certain you know i and i searched them out because of living place to go along and and theyre not the only ones you know i didnt even check them out the a but i was so naive you know i didnt know you had the italian to get in had all his. Wedding ring to it was like a lie and not k. K. Theyre accessible. School im just wondering what qualities. The dow has because when we showed that little clip of frank the imperial wizard it looks so bizarre to see the two of you sitting next to each other what is it that dawood jobs that makes k. K. K. People even listen to have i think hes honest i think basically its exam a sting and its a its a sincere sincere desire to you know be friends with even though the claims mentoring friends with a young man and sit down and get to know that he spent a lot of time studying the k. K. K. Have. To the extent where youre actually teaching some k. K. K. Members. About their own organization let me give you an example of this and show you a little clip of darrell explaining one of the ropes he had asked why does he have a rope what i will tell us in just a moment have a look is a robe of an imperial wizard the top guy this is a white cotton robe with blue adornments blue stripes blue sash and blue cape and of course you see the klan emblem the mio the red blood drop in the center signifies that they will shed their blood to preserve the white race if you look along the white cross look at that that black line right there and these two diagonal lines they form a k. So you see four k. s sensually and that stands for knights of the ku klux klan who makes sometimes the klan members wives make them there was a mennonite woman couple hours from here who was making them for the clam they have a row making division up in the shelton connecticut. Tara why do you have so much memorabilia in your house for the k. K. K. I dont keep it all in my house i keep most of it locked up on a site far away from my house but i have that paraphernalia and memorabilia regalia because one day im going to open up a museum and its part of American History you know in any country in america is no exception we have the good bad ugly and the shameful and its all part of our history and no history should be destroyed it should be preserved so people can learn from it you have to look at this so we get this sense of you know people are watching this and somebody says this sounds so idealistic it wont work befriending them would imply approving their ideology bad strategy and of course i mentioned the documentary at the top of the show and one of the parts that documentary actually opens with i dont want to spoil their alert but just a slight this might be mts for people to go watch and it opens with you explaining a phone call you had with a member of the k. K. K. And they needed a bus and so you came in handy just at the right moment and this person is asking befriending that and whether or not that just feeds into their ideology whats your take on that no you know when two enemies are talking theyre not fighting they may be yelling and screaming and beating their fists on the table disagreeing but at least theyre talking theyre not fighting and its when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence and the you know if you spend five minutes so you want to keep the conversation going if you spend five minutes with your worst enemy you will find something you havent been and if you see bad commonality. You begin to build a relationship if you feed that relationship you begin to build a friendship no matter how different you are when youre sitting across from somebody like you and i are right now and we find in common were beginning to bond you know and we may disagree on certain things but the more we find in common the less things like this begin to matter and when they give up their robes and herds theyre done that is their uniform that is their badge of honor what is done to me they dont wear out of the k. K. K. Youre not a racist what is done done done means they are done promoting racism and subscribing to that belief because that blood drop that i just explained in that video on that cross means they will shed their blood for that belief thats why its called the blood drop emblem thats a oath that they take and they have forsaken that oath and when you give a black man your nemesis your top nemesis your robe and hood youre done im going to take some video from charlottesville this is from a couple of weeks ago in virginia in the United States where White Supremacy this neo nazis went to virginia they cast where protest is complaining about them being that some going to show you this and then when you see that what he make of that i would tell you exactly because i will tell you what the media wont. Go on first of all the stated reason why they were there in charlottesville was to preserve the robert e. Lee statue they wanted to protest the taking down of the statue thats the official reason that is not the reason at all they were there and i can prove that to you give it a couple points here a. They were there because they wanted to start the first steps of a race war it was all about hate it had nothing to do with the statue history will tell you in this country there were blacks and there were jews who also fought on the side of the confederacy during the civil war so whites jews and blacks fought to gather in the civil war to uphold the confederacy right now would it not add more weight to their cause to preserve the statue to have some blacks and some jews also marching with them since hey thats our heritage too because there are blacks and jewish descendants here today in fact i know some personally who have joined confederate organizations such as sons of the confederacy who want to preserve the confederacy because their great great great ancestors fought on that side but no these people excluded their black and jewish counterparts and they kind of they are the descendants. Of of the confederacy and instead what they did was they marched down the streets and through the uva campus shouting antisemitic and antiblack epithets so it wasnt about the statue it was about hate number one number that you see hate as a hate and secondly the these people never knew their great great ancestors who fought in the confederacy but they do know their fathers their grandfathers past with a great grandfathers who fought in World War Two against the nazis so youre going to honor your great and your great great ancestors and disgrace your closer in ancestors by marching down the streets of people when swastikas the same people our fathers and grandfathers fought against puffy lost their lives against there are going to be people a many people ive seen critiques on on your philosophy its quite shop in that youre spending so much time working with. White racists and not enough time working with the Africanamerican Community in the United States and in the documentary accidental courtesy there is a moment that is very tense in this moment is when some activists from black life matter imports more had a conversation with dial have a look at what happened. If the treatment plan in free and you people. I disagree. I dont see how what about. I dont even jail. When you kill some like that so often. You arent educated about the reality that most of the people that look like you every day our young black men and women are being kidnapped off the streets theyre winning peoples lives right not to you but to take them send them right back in the same neighborhoods that are really screwed up anyway so when you say oh well we need to be right about Something Like most of them are no some i see a lot right now this sixteen years old is never may see the light of day again just because they look like my skin or your skin for that matter of course that exchange was interesting because it happened shortly after the death of freddie gray this tweet i want to show here this is just a little bit of news from the excess heated prosper taking as of a few minutes ago the u. S. Justice department wont charge six baltimore officers involved in freddie grays arrest and custody death and thats what led to the uprising somewhat collett to those protests you saw in the streets and to why those activists were there so that moment of course is sparked a lot of conversation online this is read out this is what she thinks of it she says i have zero respect for darryl davis his exchanges black lives matter was pathetic what is dinner with the k. K. K. Going to do for my people just one more before i let you respond dont read the comment says im not against errols methods from an individual standpoint but when black americans are tasked with changing the minds of bigots thats a problem so lots of criticism there what do you how do you respond to that i was pondering. Dont criticize someone until youve walked in their shoes been to places theyve never been to and possibly may never go to you know we spend too much time. In echo chambers agreeing with one another if you and sammy and i are all in agreement about racism and we form a group and we meet every other wednesday to talk about how bad racism is what do we accomplish and were accomplishing nothing until we invite lets see if he was still racist and so we invited him to our table to explain why he feels this way what his fears are we can explain to him why we feel the way. We feel about his oppression and insulting us thats how we resolve issues by talking to the other the other party and thats what a lot of those people dont do or wont do thats what i do scott whats your take on that well he may you know he basically sounded a sit down and tell me these people and any fan of a. Lot in common with you know the background i think has a lot to do with it and you know i came from a very racist society and course i wasnt helped by racism by my parents or anything but i got involved in that for personal reasons and personal problems but. I was raised by a black lady and really i always had a conflict myself with that show hes living proof that it works talking to people here today because of that that when you have a philosophy and its widely known anyone who knows you you say how can you how can you hate me when you dont even know me well the answer you get back like regularly well regularly over a period of time many of these people decide they can hate me and thats why they leave the organization thats why scott is out of the organization and many others. I think its something that joey here might agree with hes on twitter he sent us this just a few minutes ago he says well if the oppressed wont do it as in talk to people who well we got a response from some maya who writes in you have a lot of strength to do this work but it should not be the responsibility of the oppressed to educate the oppressor i disagree it is it is too small to build he of all of us with any amount of knowledge to share that knowledge with those who have it im tired of hearing im not my brothers keeper i am my brothers keeper we all are brothers alright let me share this with you from and antony says on twitter being a smooth talking blues man out talking in out behaving a club of grumpy simpletons and amateur geneticists a good strong method if youre intrigued by scott if youre intrigued by darell i recommend you look at this document accidental courtesy tao davis race and america is available on i tunes and also Netflix Dow Davis thanks for being with us as out of the stream. 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