![]() ![]() Daryl Davisĭavis shares this story in both national and global speaking engagements, on stages, and in classrooms. He didn’t answer at first but eventually admitted that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Then he said, ‘You know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black person.’…So I asked him why. Then I told him that Jerry Lewis is a good friend of mine and well, he didn’t believe that either, but he was fascinated. “I explained to this older white guy that Jerry Lee Lewis was influenced by the same black boogie-woogie and blues piano players as I was,” Davis says. After the set, he was approached by a man who said he had never seen a black man who could play like Jerry Lee Lewis. But now, during this current administration, people are talking about it, people are coming out and forming groups to address these issues.It was 1983, and Davis’ band had a country gig at the Silver Dollar Lounge in Frederick, Maryland, where he happened to be the only black man present. “That cancer known as racism has metastasized through our society, and in the past, it’s been a taboo to talk about it. He believes that President Trump’s election win is one of the best things to have happened to the United States. “The neo-Nazis and Klan people tell me, ‘Daryl, I don’t want my grandkids to be brown.’”Įven then, however, Davis remains hopeful. Census Bureau, ethnic and racial minorities will make up the majority of the United States’ population by the year 2042, in what white supremacists refer to as the “browning of America” and “white genocide.” Davis warns that as we get closer to that point, more racist incidents are likely to take place. A rose by any other name is still a rose.”Īccording to the U.S. “I’m glad that I have these things, because it means the people who wore these things, who believed in what these things stood for, no longer wear them, and no longer believe in them.”Īfter his decades-long, cross-country experience interacting with KKK members and neo-Nazis, Davis says the “new” face of hate known as the alt-right is, in fact, not new at all: “They’ve changed the name from white supremacy to white separatists, to white nationalists, to alt-right. And then put it all together, and I will have a book.” Titled Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, Davis’ book about his experiences was published in 1998. “And I’ll go around the country and I’ll do that. In time, Davis learned that the guy at the bar, and others like him, “were just human beings.” “At that point, I decided: I need to go and interview other Klan people,” he said. “I realized, maybe I’d found the way to get the answer to my question of: How can you hate me when you don’t even know me? Who better to ask?” “He looked back at me just as plain as day,” recounts Davis, “and he said, ‘I’m a member of the Ku Klux Klan.’ That’s when the man told him, “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever sat down and had a drink with a black man.” Davis asked him why. A white man approached him and offered to buy him a drink. The search for the answer to his question began one night in 1983, when Davis found himself playing in a country music bar. “How can you hate me, when you don’t even know me?” “It was beyond me that someone who had never seen me before, someone who had never spoken to 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,” says Davis. In this first episode of Unfiltered, a new weekly Yahoo News interview series documenting real, unflinching and unapologetic American voices, on topics ranging from the judicial system, to gun control, to the sex industry, we take a look at one man’s mission to understand hate and prejudice within this country. And he’s also an African-American man who’s persuaded more than 200 members of the Ku Klux Klan to leave their robes, hoods and hateful beliefs behind. Daryl Davis is an accomplished R&B and blues musician, having played with the likes of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and B.B.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |