Bonus Episode: Hate, Undone. With Daryl Davis.

We probably heard the old adage; a tiger does not change its stripes. A leopard does not change its spots. And so why would I think that a Klansman or a clanswoman would change their robe and hood? That's who they are. Just like the tiger the and the leopard. You know? But I was wrong. Okay? A tiger cannot change its stripes, neither can a leopard change its spots, because they were born with those stripes and those spots. A Klansman or clan member is not born with that robe and hood. That is a learned behavior. A Neo Nazi is not born with a swastika. That is a learned ideology. So what can be learned can be unlearned. The village square, a nerdy bunch of liberals and conservatives who believe that disagreement and dialogue make for a good conversation, a good country, and a good time. At The Village Square, we talk about politics, religion, and race. You know, the topics your mom taught you never to discuss in polite company. Listen. At the Village Square, we make pigs fly. Welcome to Village Squarecast. This is Corey Nathan, grateful to be hosting this edition of Village Squarecast, and so glad to be able to be a part of wonderful programs like the one you'll be hearing today. Thanks for joining us for Hate Undone with special guest, Daryl Davis. Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from National Endowment for the Humanities. When our guest, Daryl Davis, was really young, a question began to form in his mind that became a lifelong pursuit. That question is, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? What we learn is mister Davis shares about his incredible life story is that his question was actually a diagnosis of a central problem, a sickness, if you will, in our culture. And in his pursuit of the answer, Daryl Davis has been providing a much-needed antidote for what ails us. So this exemplary human being who's actually best known as an incredible musician who's traveled the world, which, by the way, you'll also be hearing some of Daryl's own music contributions at the top of the program and then again at the close. Daryl Davis is also a virtuoso of peace and of bridging seemingly impossible divides. This program is facilitated by the Village Square's very own founder, Liz Joyner, along with Doctor Nasheed Majouin, the executive director of Florida Humanities. Liz introduces everyone at the beginning of the program, including our special guest, author and musician, Daryl Davis. So time to turn it over to some music before we hear from Liz for proper introductions. Good evening, everyone. I'm Liz Joyner, founder and president of the Village Square. And on behalf of Village Square and Florida Humanities, we're delighted that you've joined us tonight for hate undone with our very special guest, Daryl Davis. That's double d Blues you've been listening to by Daryl Davis. This program is part of a multiyear series of digital programs, UNUM, Democracy Reignited, presented in partnership with Florida Humanities exploring the past, present, and future of the American idea as it exists on paper, in the hearts of our people, and as that manifests in our lives. Tonight, I'll be sticking around to facilitate the program because this is my hero that we have, brought to meet you tonight. But I have the distinct pleasure to welcome doctor Nasheed Madjuan, the executive director of Florida Humanities, who will join me in this endeavor tonight. Doctor Madjuin's extensive professional career in the humanities includes his past leadership at the James Eaton Senior Southeastern Regional Black Archives at Florida A&M University and the Art Museum and Archives at Hampton University. Doctor Majoun has ho served on a host of boards, including the Blues Foundation, the Austin Arts Council, Arkansas Black History Commission, Virginia State Heritage Preservation Board, VISIT Florida, and the African American History Task Force for the state of Florida. It is wonderful to have you with us. And do you ever sleep? Oh, there's a lot of good work to be done, and I'm glad to partner with you. And this is remarkable activity. Thanks for having me. It's it is really a pleasure. Also, you're gonna have to be my wing human tonight because I might just get a little jittery. And so if I, like, freeze up because I'm finally I really have been, talking about Daryl's work for as long as I've been doing this work, and I've known about it. So if I if I get kind of, like, starstruck, you'll come in and help me out. Right? Understandable. It's a national icon we have here. Yeah. Yeah. We really do. So I am thrilled now to introduce our special guest tonight, Mr. Daryl Davis. Daryl Davis is an international recording artist and leader of the Daryl Davis Band. He's played with a legendary blues band, formerly the Muddy Waters Band, which I remember that, and Chuck Berry. As an actor, Daryl has done film and television, including roles in the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire. He is the author of the book Clandestine Relationships, and his documentary, Accidental Courtesy, got lots of attention from CNN, NBC, Good Morning America, NPR, The Washington Post, and others. He also just told us that he is finishing a second book, so we're very excited about that. Mister Davis, welcome, sir. Thank you, Liz. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Good evening, Nasheed. How are you? Good evening. Nice to talk with you. My pleasure. Yes. Yes. So as I was prepping for this, I looked at our past, program was with Chloe Valdry, who you may know her work. I know her well. But she writes about you. And so I actually had a question in there that was, please tell us the story of Daryl Davis. So I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have you here tonight and say that we're gonna turn it over you, mister Davis, and you can tell us your own story, and we'll be back, in a few minutes on the flip side. Yes. Okay. Sounds good. Well, I'm age 64. I'll be 65 next month. But let's go back to my childhood. I was the child of parents in the US foreign service. So I grew up all over the world, traveling starting at the age of 3. And how it works is you're in a foreign country for 2 years with the American embassy, and then you come back home here to the States. You're here for a few months, possibly a year, and then you get reassigned to another country for 2 years. So all of this started for me in 1961 at the age of 3. Today, I'm a professional musician. I have my degree in, music, and I perform all over the world and all over this country. But back then, my first exposure to school was overseas. I did kindergarten I'm from Chicago originally, but I left the states at age 3 for 2 years. I did kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, 5th grade, and 7th grade overseas. In between, I was back home here going to school. Now my classes overseas were filled with kids from all over the world. Anybody who had an embassy there, their kids were in my school. My classmates were from Nigeria, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Australia. You name it. If they had an embassy, we all went together with their kids as well. So that was my baseline for what school should be. Let me just, show you an example of my second-grade class. This is 196566. And what you see there are a multitude of kids from all over the world. In fact, myself, they are on the back row. I'm one of the 2 black kids on the back row there. And 2 other children, one little boy and one little girl, are from the states. There were more Americans in the school, but we were the only 3 in 2nd grade there. You see a black teacher there and a white teacher. You would never see that in our country back in 1965, in an integrated school like that. But that was my baseline for what school should be. So that's what I was accustomed to. But every time I would come home, I would be in either all black schools or black and white schools, meaning the still segregated or the newly integrated. And even though desegregation was passed by the Supreme Court 4 years before I was born, in 1954, I was born 1958, schools did not integrate overnight. It took years for schools to become, integrated, and we're still even working on that in 2023, folks. So, anyway, I would be either an all-black schools or black and white schools. And there was not the amount of diversity in my classrooms back here in my own country that you saw there from overseas. Those kids were from all over the world in my 2nd grade class. So one time when I came back, I was aged 10 in the 4th grade. And I went to an integrated school in which I, in the 4th grade, and a and a little black girl in 2nd grade were the only black kids in the entire school. Let me show you my, my 4th grade class and see if you can find me. There I am there on the back row. That's my 4th grade class. So some of the guys that you see there on the back row with me, we're all age 10. They in there's some of them were cub scouts, and they invited me to join the scouts, which I did. It was a lot of fun. Got to go camping, tie some knots, things like that. We're talking 1968. Well, we have we were in Belmont, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston. And right next door to Belmont are the towns of Lexington, Massachusetts and Concord, Massachusetts. So we had a march on Patriot's Day from Lexington to Concord to commemorate the ride of Paul Revere, the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts, the Brownies, the Girl Scouts, the 4 H Club, and several other organizations. So I'm marching with my Cub Scout troop. I am the only black participant in this march. The streets are blocked off. The sidewalks on either side are lined with nothing but white people waving and smiling and cheering, having a great time. We all were having a great time until we got to a certain point in this parade route when suddenly, boom. I'm getting hit with bottles, soda pop cans, and just small debris from the street by just a small group of, white spectators off to my right, on the sidewalk mixed in with the larger crowd. Not everybody was throwing things, just about 4 or 5 people. I remember there being a couple of kids perhaps a year or 2 older than me. I didn't know them. And, perhaps their parents, because there were a couple of adults as well. But when this happened, I looked over and saw them. My first thought was because I had no precedent for this kind of behavior. You know, we didn't do that kind of stuff overseas. Everybody got along. So my first thought was, oh, these people over here, they don't like the scouts. That's how naive I was. It wasn't until my den mother, my cub master, my troop leader all came running over and huddled around me and quickly escorted me out of the danger that I realized I was the only person getting the special protection. I was the only person getting hit. So, naturally, I questioned them. What did I do? I didn't do anything to them. Why are they doing this? And all they would do is shush me and rush me along, telling me to keep moving. Everything will be fine. So I kept on moving, but they never answered my question. So at the end of the day, when I got home, my mother and father, who were not present at the parade, were fixing me up, cleaning me up, putting Band Aids on me, and asking me, how did you fall down and get all scraped up? I told them the truth. I didn't fall down. I told them exactly what had happened. And for the first time in my life, my mom and dad sat me down and explained to me what racism was. Now believe it or not, at the age of 10, 1968, I had never heard the word racism. I had no clue what my mom and dad were talking about. That were that word, and that behavior were not in my sphere. I did not grow up around that. I grew up with people from all over the world, and none of them treated me that way. So my parents had to be deceiving me. They were pulling my leg. I did not believe my parents because my 10-year-old brain could not process the idea that someone who had never laid eyes on me, never spoken to me, knew absolutely nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin. It made no sense. So and furthermore, the people who were doing that to me looked just like my friends. My little friends there in 4th grade or my American friends overseas from the embassy or my little French or Dutch or German or Swedish or Danish friends, they didn't behave like that. So my parents couldn't be telling me the truth. People don't do things like that. But I quickly found out that my parents were right. And so I formed a question at that age of 10 in my mind, which was, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And now I've been looking for that answer for almost 55 years, because I'll be 65, next month. I'm, 64 now. So in my after, graduating college with my degree in music, I began traveling again. And I travel all over the world performing. So when you take my childhood travels with my parents and now my adulthood travels as a musician and you combine them, I have now been in a total of 62 countries on 6 continents, and I have performed in all 50 of our states. What does that mean? It means that I have been exposed to a multitude of skin colors, ethnicities, cultures, ideologies, religions, etcetera. And all of that has helped shape who I have become. And I can tell you something. No matter how far I go from our country, the United States, whether it's right next door to Canada or right next door to Mexico or halfway around the globe, no matter how different the people may be, who I encounter, perhaps they don't look like me, they don't speak my language or worship as I do, I always conclude one thing. And that is that everybody I meet is a human being. And as such, every human being wants these five core values in their lives. Everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be respected. Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone wants to be treated fairly and truthfully. And everyone basically wants the same things for their family as we want for our family. And if we all can learn to apply those 5 core values or any of those values when we find ourselves in an adversarial situation or in a culture or society in which we are unfamiliar or uncomfortable, I can guarantee you that your navigation of that situation, that culture, that society will be much more smooth and much more positive. So lo and behold, I was playing a gig one night with a country band, in which I was the only black person in this band. And, they had they were pretty well established here in the state of Maryland. I live in Maryland now. And I joined them. Country Music had made a resurgence. And they played a place in a town called Frederick, Maryland. Frederick, Maryland is located about an hour and 20 minutes north of Washington, DC. There was a bar there, a lounge called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver Dollar Lounge had a reputation of being an all-white lounge and yet that black people were not welcome. Now there were no signs, you know, that you all have seen in the history books or if you're old enough, you've seen them in person where it says colored restroom, colored drinking fountain, all that kind of thing. No signs like that, but you knew if you were black, you were not welcome there. And, you know, when you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is being served, it's not always a good combination, folks. So here I was in the Silver Dollar Lounge. And my first time in there, the band had played there before. And so I'm the only black person in the band, only black person in the lounge, and we did the 1st set. We took a break, and I'm following the band over to the band table to sit down on the break. I feel somebody from behind put their arm across my shoulder. Now I don't know anybody in this place, right, except for the band. I see them all ahead of me. So I'm turning around trying to see who's touching me. It was this white gentleman, I'd say, 15 to 18 years older than me. Big smile on his face. And he's he says, man, I sure like your all's music. I said, thank you. And I shook his hand. And he says, man, I love your piano playing. This is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. Well, I was not offended, but I was rather surprised, you know, I considered it a compliment, not necessarily the black person part, but to be compared to the late, great Jerry Lee Lewis. But I was surprised that this man, being at least a decade and a half older than me, did not know the black origin of Jerry Lee Lewis' piano style, which I quickly explained to him that Jerry Lee got it from the same place I got it from, from black, blues, and boogie woogie piano players. That's where that rockabilly rock and roll piano style came from. He was, oh, no. No. No. No. I had never heard no black man play like that except for you. So I'm thinking, okay. Well, this guy maybe never saw Little Richard or Fast Domino. I said, look, man. I said, I know Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee is a very good friend of mine. He's told me himself where his influences came from. Well, the guy didn't believe that either. But he was fascinated with me and wanted me to go back to his table with him and let him buy me a drink. Now I don't drink alcohol, but I went back to his table, let him buy me a cranberry juice. He paid for it, took his glass, and he clinked my glass and cheered me. And then he says, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man. Well, now I'm sitting there completely baffled. But now you already have my background. Right? I've been all over the world. I've sat down with anybody and everybody. How is it that this man, a decade and a half older than me, had never sat down before with a black man? I was baffled. And so innocent I wasn't trying to be facetious. Innocently, I asked him. I said, why? And I was naive. And he didn't answer me. He stared at the tabletop. I asked him again, and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and said, tell him. Tell him. Tell him. I said, tell me. He looked back at me just as plain as day, and he said, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Well, I burst out laughing because now I didn't believe him. I know a lot about the Ku Klux Klan. Even though they don't just come up and hug some black guy and wanna buy them a drink and hang out with them and praise any kind of musical talent they may have, it doesn't work that way. So I figured the guy is, you know, pulling a joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes into his pocket, pulls out his billfold, goes through it, hands me his clan membership card. Yes. Card carrying member. I recognize the Ku Klux Klan in Sydney, a red circle with a white cross and a blood drop in the center. I stopped laughing. This thing was for real. So it wasn't funny anymore. I gave it back to him. But we talked about the Klan and some other things. And he was very friendly, gave me his phone number, wanted me to call him whenever I was to return to this ballroom because he wanted to bring his friends. As he put it, he wanted them to see the black guy who played like Jerry Lee Lewis. I'm not sure he called me a black guy to his friends, but that's how he explained it to me. So I would call him every 6 weeks. And, you know, we're on a rotation with other bands on the weekends. And so, he shows up. He'd bring, Klansmen and Klanswomen. You know, they didn't come in robes and hoods. They came in regular, street clothes. And they'd watch me play. They'd get out on the dance floor and dance to our music. So I got to know some of them, the ones who want to meet me. On the breaks, I'd make my way over to his table. But a couple of them, when they see me coming, would get up and move to the other side of the room. Like, you know, we don't wanna talk to you. We don't wanna touch you. We just wanna look at you. Yeah. Which was fine by me. The others would hang there, and they were curious. And, you know, we would sit down and meet and talk. So this went on for a while until I quit that band at the end of the year of that year, and I went back to playing rock and roll and rhythm and blues and whatever else was going on. Well, a few years later, it dawned on me. Daryl, you blew it. The answer to your question that has been plaguing you since the age of 10 fell right into your lap. You didn't even realize it. Who better to ask that question of, how can you hate me when you don't even know me, than to ask someone who would go so far as to join an organization that has over a 100-year history of practicing hating people who don't believe as they believe and who do not look like them. So I got back in contact with that guy. I decided I would write a book. I would travel around the country and interview grand dragons and imperial wizards and rank and file clansmen and clanswomen and ask that question and write a book about it. I never set out to convert anybody. I just want to find out why. Why do you hate me? How can you hate me? You don't even know me. So in the course of traveling around the country, I went up north, went down south, went to the Midwest, went to the west, and interviewed 100 of clan of clan members. Some would talk to me; some would not talk to me. Some want to fight, you know, got violent and things like that. Fortunately, that was, you know, few and far between. But those who talked to me did the interview, I put out the book, and now I'm putting out my second book. I've been in this in this field of race reconciliation going now on 41 years. So I'm gonna show you a picture from about, almost 30 years ago, 29 years ago. Here, I went to a clan rally. And you see I'm a little thinner there. I got a little more hair on my head. It's towards the end of the rally. The fiery crosses, the flames are dying out. But I asked the Klansman if he would pose for a picture with me, which he did. So that was, 29 years ago. Here's one from, from 7 years ago. This one here that you're looking at is in the state of Maryland. This one here is in the state of Missouri. Missouri from about 7 years ago. There were a lot more Klansmen and Klanswomen there, but the rally is over, and they're over at a picnic table just out of the camera shot getting food and beverages. They always leave some Klansmen around the burning cross because the cross will fall over at the end, and they don't want anything to catch on fire. So they stay on guard there. Now what do I do at Klan rallies? I talk to people. I converse with them because I'm a firm believer that a missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed opportunity for conflict resolution. Nothing gets resolved without conversation. And, you know, the greatest weapon against racism to combat racism is also the least expensive weapon. It's free. It's also the most underused weapon. It's called conversation. Today, I don't know what is up, but people wanna engage in cancel culture. That's not how you do it. You do it by conversing, having these conversations. This guy what you see I'm doing right here. When I came on that rally ground that day, the guy you see facing me with the mask on, he threatened my life when I came on that rally ground. That was 7 years ago. Ever since then, he's been sending me a Christmas present every year, and he is no longer in the clan. And I own that robe and that hood. It's now in my collection. So this is the power of conversation. This is the power of applying those 5 core values that I told you everyone wants. If we can learn to do that, we can definitely get ahead. And this works not just on racial divide, but also on political divide or any kind of adversarial thing. You know? In fact, let me tell you what. Let's take race off the table for a second. There are other hot topics out here. We have abortion, nuclear weapons, global warming, the war in the Middle East, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the presidential election. Somebody's on one side, somebody's on the other. Apply those five core values. Have civil dialogue. You may not agree. You may agree. But at least you can navigate that situation in a more positive and constructive and productive manner. And that is what we need. It bothers me a great deal, as an American, that we call ourselves the greatest nation on the face of this earth. Now don't get me wrong. I love my country. I'm a patriot. But I do have a problem with that statement. Now perhaps we are the greatest nation on the face of this earth, technologically. After all, we, Americans, we built the technology to put a man on the moon. And when and when astronaut Neil Armstrong was up there on the moon walking around, talking about one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind, we were able to talk to Neil Armstrong live all the way from Earth all the way to the moon via satellite radio phone. We, Americans, invented that technology. Everybody sitting in your home or wherever you may be, watching this program right now, obviously, you have Internet. You also have a cell phone, and you also have email. You can talk to anybody on the face of this earth. You hit a few numbers, hit a few letters and words, hit send, and you're talking to people in Florida, you can talk to people out in California, you talk to people in China, in Africa, in Europe, in in Australia, wherever you wanna talk. How is it that we, as Americans, can talk to people as far away as the moon or anywhere on this planet, but yet, there are still so many of us who have difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door, because that person is a different skin color or a different persuasion, a different religion, a different whatever. So it seems to me that before we can call ourselves the greatest nation on the face of this earth, perhaps our ideology needs to catch up to our technology. And when we get them both up there, then we can truly brag about how great we are. Because, folks, we are living in the 21st century. We are living in space age times. So tell me, why are we still thinking with stone age minds? So at this point, I wanna invite back my cohost, Nasheed and to join me for a conversation and answer some of the questions they may have, and you might have. Okay. I'm already having problems with freezing up because I'm so overwhelmed. I'm not gonna get through this without crying some. I it is really hard to imagine at a time when many of us cannot get through a Thanksgiving dinner with someone we disagree with. How in the world you could form these relationships and keep them over the course of years when they when it was with people who so foundationally disapproved of you? How do you how do you do that? How did you do that? Okay. Well, let me give you my favorite quote of all time, and then let me show you how it applies. My favorite quote of all time is by Mark Twain, the author. And it's called the travel quote. And Mark Twain said, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness. And many of our people need us sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. And this is so true. Every time we travel, every time we go somewhere, see something new, meet somebody different, we are broadening our horizons. Now all that travel that I described to you that I've done does not make me a better human being than someone who has done less travel. What it does is it gives me a broader perspective of humanity. And that's what I wanna share with people who have done less travel. But understand something. The travel that I have done involve me leaving this country, going across the Atlantic Ocean or across the Pacific Ocean, you know, or traveling from East Coast to West Coast in this country, etcetera. You know? And I started that at age 3 in 1961, and I'm still doing it. But today, we have the Internet. We can travel virtually. We can take a tour of Venice. We can take a tour of the Eiffel Tower sitting in our bedroom, on our laptop. You know, we can go to a to a 3-d tour of these places, meet people in other countries, establish relationships. I call it walking across the cafeteria. But before I get to that, you know, I would say all these different cultures and things that I've been exposed to, all of it helps shape who I've become. And I've been exposed to so many different cultures that when I deal with people like Neo Nazis, KKK people, I just consider them another culture. It's not a culture that I would subscribe to, but I consider them another culture, and I treat them as such. I show them the respect that I would sit down and listen to them. I allow them to be heard. And when I say respect, I'm not saying I respect what they have to say. I'm saying I respect their right to say it. And I'll sit down and listen to them. And in turn, guess what? They sit down and listen to me. Alright? So I'm not trying to change their minds. I'm giving them other thoughts, other ideas. And when they absorb those things, many of them end up changing their own minds. Because, you know, I don't I'm not trying to convert anybody. I'm just trying to find out why. You've clearly been able to find their humanity in inside of that relationship. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, and it involves that con that conversation, not cancel culture that we see, so much of today. Yeah. I wanna contribute to that point. You know, early on in your life, you were equipped with the tools to listen and understand and not prejudge a situation or a person, and that is a critical part of engaging in the civil discourse. You understand and you know and you're not afraid to encounter something that's, new or different from the way you see things. This is very this is very true, Nasheed. And, you know, I would like to think that I can’t be certain. I would like to think that I would be that way even if I had not done all that travel. But there is a possibility. If I had grown up here in my own country all my 64 years, would I be involved in this, or would I be staying as far away from those people as I could? So now so we have I like to push back on that slightly because if you're encountering the members of the Ku Klux Klan around the country and they decided at some point to make that change on their own, that's because those 5 values you mentioned were deep down in them at their core, and you knew how to address that. So that means maybe that altruism, that intrinsic element of good naturedness was in them in the beginning and you found a way to open that door. But that door was open to you early on. Yes. Indeed. And, you know, people are not born with that kind of hatred. I think what, you know, what it is this. All of us, probably you, probably Liz, and anybody out there viewing or listening, as children, we probably heard the old adage, a tiger does not change its stripes. A leopard does not change its spots. And so why would I think that a Klansman or Klanswoman would change their robe and hood? That's who they are. Just like the tiger, the and the leopard. You know? But I was wrong. Okay? A tiger cannot change its stripes, neither can a leopard change its spots, because they were born with those stripes and those spots. A Klansman or clan member is not born with that robe and hood. That is a learned behavior. A Neo Nazi is not born with a swastika. That is a learned ideology. So what can be learned can be unlearned. And it's a matter of, as you said, soliciting that humanity in them. And that comes from listening to one another. You cannot expect anyone to listen to you if you're not willing to listen to them. That's true. So there are a couple of questions from the audience that were sort of, on target here. They wanna know when you went to rallies, were you afraid that you might be hurt or killed? And then did you bring others, for backup just in case? That's a good question. No. I was not afraid, and I'll tell you why. There are very few things that that frighten me in life. I don't know why. And people have often wondered about that, and I wondered about it myself. But, no, I was not afraid. But, also, there's 2 kinds of rallies. There are public plan rallies and there are private plan rallies. So what's the difference? Public plan rally would be like in a public park. So they have to go to city hall, apply for a permit, you know, to hold a rally just like, you know, any of us would if you want to have a family reunion or sell hot dogs and lemonade or whatever, you know, we do in in parks. We get a permit. Alright? So they have to do the same thing, but it's a public park. So, therefore, the public can come. Now, if there is violence, people throwing things, and, you know, there's gonna be, physical, mayhem, there's gonna be a barrier of police between protesters and the people participating in the rally in the Klan rally. Alright? But if there's not that kind of violence, say the park is in a town that is, welcoming of that kind of ideology, then chances are you can just walk up freely and talk to these people. So there are those are public rallies which anybody can go to. A private rally is held usually on a clan person's property or somebody's property that they know. And, you know, you just can't walk on private property unless you are invited. So over time, as I develop relationships with clan leaders, like a grand dragon grand dragon means state leader. Imperial wizard means national leader. So as I develop relationships with some of these leaders and they began trusting me, they would invite me to private rallies. So I would be on the on that private property, watching them parade around in their robes and hoods, around a big burning cross, and proclaiming white power and all those other kinds of stuff. Now, granted, there were some people there who did not want me there and did not like the idea of my being there. However, they had to obey their leaders. If the leader invited me you know, there is a regiment chain of command, and they cannot go against that. It's kind of like a military chain of command. So while they didn't like me there, there's nothing they could do about it. So I'm assuming you gained their trust in some ways by letting them be them? I mean, how did they start to trust you to bring you back your inner circle? By applying those 5 core values. I want you to listen to what this, imperial wizard has to say at a rally, that I was at. He said it's he uses he uses the n word there, but that's the world that I live in. That's the world that they that they practice. Davis is one of the few African Americans you will ever find attending a KKK rally. More than attending, he is welcome. I got more respect for that black man than I do you white niggas out there. Has friendship transcended the color barrier? Listen to Kelly at a Klan rally. Oh, and I'm beating the hell back because I believe in what he's saying for, and he believes in what I'm saying for. A lot of times, we don't agree with everything, but at least he respects me to sit down and listen to it. I'll respect him to sit down and listen to him. The strange relationship of a KKK wizard and his black buddy. In Washington, I'm Carl Rochelle, CNN, Sunday morning. Okay. Now you heard that imperial wizard say, we may not agree on everything, but at least he respects me to sit down and listen to me, and I respect him to sit down and listen to him. In that one sentence, he didn't realize it. He used 3 of those 5 core values I just told you about. I told you. Yeah. Everybody wanted to be loved. Everybody wants to be respected. We all wanna be heard. We all wanna be treated fairly. We all want the same things for our family as they want for their family. He said I respected him. That's one of those values. He said I sat down and listened to him. That means I allowed him to be heard. That's the second value. And because I respected him and sat down and listened to him, he said he respected me and sat down and listened to me. That's treating each other fairly. Right. He named 3 of those values. Okay? And as a result of my applying those values time and time again, every time I would meet with him, he quit the Ku Klux Klan and renounced it and shut down the group. He didn't pass it down to his second in command when he quit. He shut it down. And today, I own that robe and hood that you saw him wearing by applying those values. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens over time because he didn't become that way overnight. He's not gonna lose it, you know, you know, overnight. It's like it's like this gut that I have on here that you can't see because I'm hiding below the screen. Right? So listen. I used to be skinny like, Nasheed here. But, you know, I put on some weight, you know, over years. I'm trying to lose it, and I'm losing it. It's the coward. I'm right there with you. I'm not gonna lose it overnight. I didn't put it on again. I'm not gonna lose it overnight. So can I pull on that thread a little bit? You said, so canceling people is not the way to get this done. But talk a little bit more about why and compare to what you've done, which clearly has worked. Okay. Listen. Our society, our country, our life, our job, these things can only become one of 2 things. Our country can only become 1, that which we sit back and watch it become or 2, that which we stand up and make it become. So we all as individuals have to ask ourselves, do I wanna sit back and see what my life becomes? What my job becomes? What my country becomes? Do I wanna stand up and make my job, make my life, make my country become what I wanna see? And that's a question that we all have to answer individually. And in order to do if you choose the latter, the only way you're gonna do that is by simulating with other people, getting to know them because they you know, you're not here by yourself. And I called it walking across the cafeteria. Alright? We can do it physically or we can do it virtually. Let me tell you, for example, I'm you know, pre COVID, people in office buildings, corporations, companies, or schools, diverse places where you have students or employees of different backgrounds. They're working on the same project. They're getting along. They even might even share the same cubicle while they work on that project. But what happens at 12 noon? They go downstairs to the cafeteria, and blacks sit with blacks. Hispanics sit with Hispanics. This group sits with the same group of their people. This is this is called self-segregation. Right? We sip we self-segregate. Does that mean that these people are racist? No. Not necessarily. People tend to feel more comfortable around familiarity. I never knew familiarity because every 2 years, I was in some strange place. Right? So everybody was familiar to me. So that's why I can adjust to different people. Right? So anyway, I say this. Now if you walk across the cafeteria and sit at somebody else's table, and they say, oh, no. No. No. No. No. Go back to your own table. Get back over there. Then, yes, there's a problem, and it has to be addressed, and it should be addressed. Okay? But I would say this. Once or twice a week, leave your comfort group. Walk across the cafeteria and sit at somebody else's table because you have a lot to teach them. You have a lot to learn from them. And in the process, you will make a new friend, and you will broaden your horizons. And if you can't do it physically because you telecommute, then get online and call one of your coworkers in some other country or some other state and have a chitchat with them, you know, during nonworking hours or whether or make an appointment during work working hours to talk with them, you know, after you get off work. Sit down and just get to know one another. Learn about their families. Learn about, you know, what they practice, you know, what they do at home, what they eat, etcetera, etcetera. This broadens our humanity. That's called walking that's my term, walking across the cafeteria in person or virtually. I love it. I love it. Daryl, I have a question. Now we're talking about you mentioned your age several times and the geographical differences, that you've encountered domestically and internationally. I'm curious to know if there was any consistency in the generation, in the age of the people who are open to your dialogue. And actually let me tag on to that an audience question. They wonder if you've noticed any difference between, people in the north and the south on this point. Yep. Both questions. Excellent. No. It all depends upon the individuals. I mean, I know I know young people who are just as feisty as some of the older people. Some older people who are setting their ways, but they wouldn't sit down and talk, I always wanna, you know, wanna fight. You know, I've unfortunately, I've been involved in in violent confrontations because I'm gonna defend myself if somebody puts their hands on me, of course. But fortunately, like I said, you know, those have been few and far between. And even some of those people, you know, who in who engaged in violence with me, some of them have come back to me, not all of them Oh. Have come back to me and apologized and sat down and talked. And some of them are now and have become friends of mine. Goodness. Amazing. Because it's a learned behavior. So we have to we have to get through our head. What can be learned can become unlearned. Mhmm. And, you know, if we had no hope, then why even bother trying to change things? You know, you can't say, well, I wanna change things, but then not get out there and do something about it and realize it's gonna take time. Alright. So this is truly a study in human decency. You know, sometimes you have the discussions with people and there may be some apathy or reluctance or anxiety in trying to influence change. I know we've talked about change and innovation, but at the core, we're saying we're making an argument that there's a level of decency in everyone and expect That's right. We should expect that. 100%. And, you know, you mentioned, I think, Liz, you mentioned about somebody, you know, not wanting to go to dinner at their family's home because of political differences. We saw more of that in the last few years than we've ever seen before. You know? I'm not going to Thanksgiving dinner with my family because my sister voted for so and so, and I voted for this one, and I just can't talk to her. You know? That that's cancel culture right there. You know? That that's where it starts. Listen. No matter who is gonna become president, that person is only gonna be there for a minimum of 4 years or a maximum of 8 years. How long have you been with your family? Decades? You know, and your best friend? Decades? Are you gonna throw away decades of a relationship over somebody who's only around for 4 to 8 years? Come on. That doesn't even make common sense. It's not rocket science. You know? So when you put it in that kind of perspective, then you do some introspection and say, you know what? Okay. So he or she voted for so and so. It wasn't my choice. But let me listen to them and see why. What happened in her life or his life that that gave them reason to vote? Oh, well, maybe I understand that now. Okay. Well, I wouldn't have done it, but I see why you did it. And then maybe they'll understand why I voted for this one. And so we can agree to disagree, or we can agree with that person, or they can agree with us. But we have to have that civil dialogue, not cancel people out. And see, here's what we do. We have to understand something. One's perception is one's reality. Uh-huh. Everybody knows that. You know, even if it's not real, it's their reality. And you cannot change somebody's reality. They only know what they know. And if you attack what they know, they're gonna push back. They're gonna push back because you are attacking what they think is real. So never try to change somebody's reality. If you want their reality to change, what you do is this. You offer them a better perception or better perceptions. Mhmm. And if they resonate with one of your perceptions, then they would change their own reality because their perception becomes their reality. I'll just give you a quick example, hypothetical one. Let's say, Liz, you have a young 7- or 8-year-old son, and he goes to a magic show with his buddies. And he comes home and tells you, mom, you're not gonna believe this. You know, this magician asked for a female volunteer, and 50 women raised their hand. And he picked 1 out of the audience, brought her up on stage, and had her climb into this long box and stick her feet out the hole at that end and put her head out the hole at this end. And then he closed the lid, and he took a saw, a chainsaw, went right down the middle of the box. He cut her in half. They told her to wiggle her feet. And she wiggled her feet. And then you say, listen. It didn't really happen like that. Yes. It did. I was there. You weren't even there. I saw it with my own eyes. You weren't even there. See what happens? You attacked his reality. He knows what he saw. He saw a man cut a woman in half, and she wiggled her feet. And you were not there, and you have no right to tell him what he didn't see, and it wasn't real. Okay? You don't attack his reality. And to make it even more real, he tells you, after the guy cut the box in half and she wiggled her feet, he took the half of the box with the feet and moved it over there to stage right and took the half of the head and moved over there to stage left. So there's lots of evidence. Right? Yeah. Exactly. You know? And then and then he tells you the magician walked over and talked to the lady's head as she talked back to him. Right? He brings the 2 halves back together. He does this abracadabra incantation over the over the lid of the box, and then he opens it up, and she climbs out full form. No blood. Knacked together. He cut her in half, and he put her back together, and you say, listen. That's an illusion. No. It's not. I'm telling you. Right? You've attached his reality again. And so now he's mad. So and he's canceling you out. What you do is you don't attack his reality. You offer him a better perception. You say, listen. I understand what you're saying. I hear you. But do you think it's possible that maybe, just perhaps, when he asked for a female volunteer and you say he picked one of the women out of the audience and brought her up on stage, you think that maybe that woman might work for him? Maybe he planted her in the audience, and she travels all over the country with him. She knows the trick, and she sits in the same seat in every theater that they go to, so he always knows where to find her. And when she climbs into the box, there's already a pair of mannequins, dummy legs, laying on the floor of the box that are wearing the same stockings and shoes that she has on. So she just picks up those legs and shows them out the hole, and she brings her own knees up under her chest. So her whole body is on that half of the box. So when he cuts the box in half, the sun never even touches her. And when he says wiggle your feet, she just shakes those poles, and the feet wiggle. But now when he separates the boxes, those feet can't move anymore. So he asked you to distract you from looking at those feet. So he goes over there to her head. Of course, the head's gonna turn back. The whole body is over there. So now you're not you're not you're not focusing on those feet anymore. You're following him. And then when he brings them back together, she just pulls those legs out, leaves them on the floor of the box, and she climbs out. And then your sense your son says, you know, that might be the only way that could work. So you've offered him a better perception. He resonated with that perception, and now that perception becomes his reality. And to be able to do that, you have to be talking to him. You have to be sitting next to him. You have to be in relationship. Exactly. A missed opportunity for conversation is a missed opportunity for reconciliation. Well, you know, I've learned something here because and you didn't know the trick. Yeah. But definitely didn't know the trick. But so but to start that off, you had to give the respect of accepting his reality whether you agree with it or not. After from the beginning, you had to give one of those values. You had to give that person respect, and in return, they allowed you to speak and share their alternatives. They listened to you. That's that value, treating each other you nailed it, man. That's it. You know, you don't have to respect what they're saying but show them the respect that you will listen to them. Okay? Because people wanna be heard. They wanna be respected. And then in turn, they reciprocate. That's and that's the fairness. That's the that's the fair, core value. So there's this amazing, point in accidental courtesy in the movie, which I highly recommend everybody. You can watch it on Amazon. Do it. Do it. When you are about to get married to a white woman, you're in the room with one of your friends who was currently in the KKK. And, the producer asks, well, wait. You know? He asked the KKK member, you're going to this wedding. You know, you don't believe in interracial marriage. Why are you going? And his answer was, it's Daryl. So talk about that. Yeah. He can't he listen. That guy that you're talking about, okay, check this out. He was the grand dragon of Maryland at one time, which means state leader. Okay? Now, he went to prison. He went to prison for 4 years for conspiring to bomb a synagogue up on Liberty Road in Baltimore, Maryland. Alright? He continued running the Klan from within the prison through his guy on the outside. When he got released 4 years later, he took it back over and continued running it. He got into some trouble a couple years later, went back to prison for 3 years for assault with intent to murder 2 black men with a shotgun. Wow. So now so he did 7 years in prison. Alright? While he was grand dragon of the Klan, conspiring to bomb a synagogue and, you know, shoot up people or whatever, you don't get paid money to be a clan leader. You might get a couple, you know, a small stipend out of the clan dues, but you have to have a regular job. Grand Dragon, Exalted Cyclops, Great Titan, Imperial Wizard. These are all titles. You have to have a regular job. His regular job, while he was in the Klan, was Baltimore City police officer. Mhmm. He was not he was not a police officer undercover in the Klan gathering intelligence. He was a Bonafide Klansman on the Baltimore police force. Alright? And, anyway, he went on to become one of my best friends. He got out of this because of me, because of our friendship. And that's why he came to my wedding. He invited my then girlfriend, now my wife, over to Christmas dinner at his home. He came to our wedding. And do you know he sent me a nice letter, you know, saying, you know, the how impressed he was, he said he said, your opening was just like ours. He was expecting. You know? Because he now needs a black wedding. Right. It's not a black wedding. It's a wedding. You know? Right. It's that exposure. It's that it's that walking across the cafeteria. Now I told you the story about the Klansman who walked up to me when I came off the stage at the Silver Dollar Lounge. That Klansman, who I he and I became friends and got me started on this journey of traveling and interviewing these people. He literally walked across the cafeteria to talk to me. Alright? He left his clan buddy at the table because he liked the music I was playing. He never saw a black guy play music like that even though he didn't realize it was black music. Alright? You know, in a country band. And he walked across the lounge to talk to me. And as a result, a friendship happened, and that's what got me here today. So walking across the cafeteria does work. Whether we do it or whether they do it, it is effective. Yeah. Another point that that story reminded me of early in the, this conversation was consistent communication and patience. You know, you mentioned several times that you will correspond by letter, or you will call someone every 6 weeks and you didn't expect, or you didn't anticipate them to make a change immediately. You gave that relationship time to nurture and foster and grow into something that was meaningful. You are also cultivating an atmosphere of respect. Yes. Yes. Indeed. And at the same time, you know, they one of the most important things that I've learned is this. Well, couple of things. 1, your most valuable asset that you have in your life when you deal with anybody is your credibility. Mhmm. That's priceless. Okay? Your credibility. And so you're already talking to somebody who thinks you are not credible at all. That's why they're in that organization. Because you are inferior, and they are superior. So you have no credit. Alright? But your credibility is of the utmost importance. Because while you actively learning about someone else, at the very same time, you are passively teaching them about yourself. So you think you're gleaning all this information from them, but they're observing you. And they're, you know, imbibing or whatever they can get out of you, and they're evaluating it. And it's when because, you know, they're expecting you to behave the way they perceive you, which is negative. And when you when you don't behave that way, it causes a cognitive dissonance with them. Because he's not following the rules, you know, or whatever. And, and they have to they have to adjust to that and find out what's real and what's not real. And it troubles them. And then they finally decide, oh, you know and what you don't want to happen is, well, you know, Daryl's okay for a black guy. It's all those other black people. K? You will find that happening. But what I do is this. When I feel that I can trust somebody, I'm not afraid of them myself. But when I feel that I can trust somebody, then they're not gonna hurt anybody else that I bring, you know, to the to the table or whatever. I would invite some of my other friends, some of my Jewish friends, some of my other black friends, some of my white friends who look just like them but don't agree with their ideology. So that way that they see Daryl's not the exception. Maybe I'm the exception thinking this way because he's seeing other people that don't fit the stereotypical image that he had in his mind that his echo chamber around him keeps reinforcing and causing that cognitive dissonance. So then he has to make a decision. Do I disregard Darryl's skin color or the fact that this person is Jewish and, and change my ideological direction because I know that what I've learned is wrong? Or do I consider his skin color or consider the fact that he is a Muslim or a Jew or whatever it is I don't like and continue living a lie? That becomes their dilemma. And in most cases, people will follow the truth, the path of least resistance. But there will always be those who will go to their graves being hateful, violent, and racist, you know, on any side. Well, it's like your, kindness and your generosity are pushing what feels like a vicious cycle that we're trapped in with sort of, like hate reciprocated by like hate into a virtuous cycle. And, going to an audience question sort of related to that, they're talking about how it seems like all everybody's opinions are getting more and more extreme right now and more and more militant on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of race. Because we keep fueling fire with fire. Like doctor King said, you know, you don't drive out hate with hate. You drive out with love. You have to have that counterbalance. You know what I mean? You know, if you put your hand in hot water and it's burning you, you don't pour you don't put more hot water on it. You turn on the cold water real quick. You know, you need you need a counterbalance. So somebody's hating on me. Why don't I wanna express hate back? You know? Now, I mean, the only time I would express something similar back would be if somebody is physically trying to hurt me, and that's my only, you know, way of getting out of it is to put a stop to it by enacting the same thing. But I'm not gonna, you know, push out hate, you know, because hate's coming in. That just increases the whole hate, and it just becomes, like you said, a vicious cycle. And you're right. That's what we're seeing politically. We saw it on TV the other night during the state of the union. Oh goodness. So we've got, like, so many comments in the in, from the audience about, you. You are my hero. Thank you for your inspiration and devotion. How do you cultivate more people whose curiosity and courage overpowers their defensiveness and tolerance and fear? How do we make tens of 1000000 people who listen first, which is a wonderful organization who is co-streaming tonight, and converse with respect and curiosity with no intent to convert or malign. Okay. You remember let's go back to, high school, junior high school, you know, when, when we would have our school dance. And we all we we're all excited about going to the dance on Saturday night. You know? There's somebody that, you know, that we really wanna dance with, and she doesn't know it. But we're gonna ask her to dance. Yeah. So you've been there, Liz. I can tell. So let's go back there in our mind. And we and we go we go to the school dance, we're in the gym, and everybody's standing there with their back to the wall, eyeballing everybody else. And the band is playing great songs. You wanna dance, but nobody wants to be the 1st person on the dance floor. Right? Finally, somebody gets on the dance floor, and then everybody else gets on the dance floor. Let's be that person who is the 1st person on the dance floor. Okay? Let's stop waiting for somebody else. You know, we can do something on our own for once in our lives, and this is a positive thing. So, you know, let let's not be afraid to converse. Let's you know, but don't go into it blindly. Know who you are. But and learn as much as you can about the other person regardless of what the adversarial topic is, whether it's republican, democrat, black, white, Christian, Jew, whatever it is, whatever is on the opposite end, learn as abortion, pro-choice, whatever. Learn the other person's position. Put yourself in that place and see how you would think. And then go in. Go in with your beliefs because here's what happens. You start this far apart. You're at opposite ends of the spectrum. But you talk with your worst enemy or your biggest adversary for 5 minutes. You will find something in common, and that gap narrows. You talk for another 5 minutes, you find even more in common, and the gap narrows some more. And when you're right here, you are in a relationship with your adversary. Whether you like it or not, you are in a relationship with that person. You may not be going out and having dinner with the person, but you're having a cordial relationship with him or her. You talk some more. You find more in common. And now you're friendly. You're having a friendly relationship. Even though you may disagree on some things, you're having a friendly relationship. But when you've gotten to this point, you have found so much in common that they you know, that that the trivial things that you have in contrast, such as skin color or whether you go to a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a temple, begin to matter less and less. Because it's very hard to hate somebody when you're standing right there in front of them, having a conversation, speaking the same language. You both like the same j you both like the same James Bond movie, but perhaps he likes Sean Connery and you like Roger Moore. Okay. So what? You still like James Bond. You know? You know, he thinks, you know, the king the king of rock and roll is Chuck Berry. Everyone thinks it's Elvis Presley. Okay. But you still like rock and roll. You know? So you have these things in common, and you develop that friendship, and you have this conversation. It's hard to hate that person. And that's what happened with the guy you're talking about, Liz. You know? Well, it's Daryl. You know? You have any special power. I have to I have to imagine that, you know, the concept of be the example can be, intimidating for some people. But from your perspective, if you start from a place of integrity, you said know yourself, know the values, be consistent with who you are, and the conversations you have as those two divisive points start to get closer, there are people watching that. That's right. The CNN clip that you shared where the leader of the organization said, I like this person better than I like you, and the expectation should have been opposite. Somebody was curious about the nature of that relationship. Somebody wanted to find out what makes that relationship tick. Why does he have so much trust and so much love and respect for somebody he's supposed to be teaching us not to love and respect? Right. Because of that credibility. And the thing of it is I wanna see these people, not just the first time interview them. Okay. I got your story. Now I never see you again. I wanna see them again. I invite them to my gigs. If I'm playing in their county, hey. You know, if you're not doing anything Friday night, whatever, I'm playing over so and so's bar. Come on out and see what I do. Yeah. And they come. You know? So I'm gonna I keep in contact with them. Alright? And let them see me in my natural habitat, which is behind the piano playing rock and roll or country or whatever. And they can enjoy that. Alright? My credibility is built up because I tell you what, like I said, while you are actively learning about someone else, you are passively teaching them about yourself. And if they find you not to be credible, it's over. Because they, you know, they already think you're not credible. And if you do the slightest thing wrong, that reinforces them. It exacerbates already what they think. You know? So just like, for example, you know, if you if you ask some lady out on a date and, and, you know, put it this way, you only have one opportunity. One opportunity to make a good first impression. Yes. Okay? You may have a second or third opportunity to make an impression if you're lucky, but you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression. And most people would judge you on their first impression of you. So if you ask somebody out and they go out with you, and for whatever reason, you know, they're not impressed with you, maybe they caught you in a lie or whatever it was you did, your credibility is shot. And you say, hey. Listen. You know, I really enjoyed myself. You know? Can I take you out again next week? They're like, no. I don't think so. You know, whatever. Right? They're done. Alright? So with these people, you know, they're not coming to be converted. You know, they're curious as to why a black man wants to know about why they wanna be in the plan and blah blah blah. But in initially, they didn't know I was black. Okay? They thought I was white guy coming to interview them. Of course, they freaked it out when they saw me. But now everybody knows, you know, because word travels quickly. But so now they're curious. I wanna see them again. So I thank them for their time. Maybe I didn't agree on anything with them that day, but I thank them. I listen to them. I show them that respect. I'm being fair. And, I say, hey. Listen. You know? Hey. I really appreciate your time. You know? You've given me a lot of information. Let me absorb it. Let me process it. I might have a couple questions maybe in a couple weeks. Is it okay if I check back in with you and maybe, you know, get together again, just review some things? Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Because even though they don't like me, I'm credible. Right. If I, you know, attack their reality, I they catch me in a line. They say no. You got your interview. We're done. I don't need to see you anymore. Done. Yes. Yes. I like the I like the manner of consistency that's, that that that's emerging as a thing. No matter what the situation is, the person you encounter, you have the patience to allow that relationship to emerge and to develop. Even it takes 2 weeks of follow-up, 6 weeks of follow-up, phone call, you allow that to be a part of how you pursue that conversation or that interaction. There's no skin off my back to call somebody and check check-in on them. Yeah. See, hey. How are you doing? You know, I'll tell you what. Check this out. The Klansman in the picture that I showed you, he's the imperial wizard of that particular group. He had his name was Frank Ancona. Look him up. A n c o n a. But you gotta put in Frank Ancona at KKK because there's another Frank Ancona who's a car dealer. You don't want Dino. He has nothing to do with the clan. So, anyway, he was the imperial wizard. If, of the largest clan group in the country at the time, if he had lived for another year, I would have I he would have been out of the Klan, because he and I were becoming very close. But he was murdered. I knew him very well. I knew the murderer very well. I went to this man's funeral, and I participated in his funeral. Not because I respect the clan, I respected him for giving me the time and the interviews that he gave me. And, you know, he was friendly to me. I did not agree with everything he stood for, but I could see him changing. You know? And like I said, he was on his way out, but he was murdered. And I participated in the funeral. I played hymns on the on the piano doing the, the church service and all that kind of thing. The whole clan was there, and they saw that. And do you know what? They invited me to one of their rallies in, in, South Dakota and one of their, meetings in, in Kentucky. Mhmm. And I went, and I spoke at their rally. I spoke at their meeting. And do you know several people? Not immediately, because, you know, they don't do anything in front of each other. Right? But the seed was planted. You know, after things were over, a few days later, a couple weeks later, 3 of them quit. And I have their robes. I got them in the mail. In the mail. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. Wow. That is extraordinary. Now I was in, I was in, Custer, South Dakota for this rally. And I knew that, what do you call it? Mount Rushmore is nearby. I wasn't sure how far it was. And so, you know, when the rally was over, you know, I done my speaking and stuff, and we're all sitting around. You know, it's nighttime. And I said, isn't Mount Rushmore around here somewhere? You know, a lot of people don't know this, but Mount Rushmore was carved by a Klansman. Yeah. I know that. I did not know that. Yeah. Yep. Check it out. I knew that a lot. Of course, the plan knows it, but it's not in the history books. You know, you gotta research it. And, anyway, so I said, isn't Mount Rushmore around here somewhere? He goes, yeah. Yeah. It's only 20 minutes up the road. I said, well, I'd like to go up there. You know, can you all take me up there tomorrow? He said, yeah. So they came by my hotel and picked me up, drove me to Mount Rushmore. Right? We hung up at Mount Rushmore, you know? And how are the pictures taken in front of, you know, the mountain there and all that kind of stuff? So not only do I engage with them in the work that I do, but I engage with them on a social level so they can see me as any normal human being who wants to see a part of history. That's all. And that that resonates with them. And then they wonder, how can I hate that guy? I never really knew him. Right. And you allowed time for reflection. You allowed Exactly. You gave them something to reflect on as well. Precisely. So a question from the audience, heartfelt one. I'm a conservative leaning millennial, and I'm concerned about the future as I've noticed that there are left of center people around my age who are intolerant of opposing opinions, and this causes me to stay quiet out of fear of being excluded or rejected, based on my views. What are some things you would recommend taking the first step in order to at least respectfully share my ideas with people around my age? Okay. 1st, you don't have to give up your, you know, your views. If people, you know, left of center, right of center, this, that, and the other. K? Whether you're conservative or liberal, you know, there's people in the middle, people leading this way or that way. Get over the fear. Alright? Be who you are. People will respect you for who you are Because if you present yourself as anybody else, it's gonna eventually come out. You know, I'm I sing the blues, and there's an old blues song where the lion says, if the washing doesn’t get you, the rents ensure will. So it all eventually comes out. Be who you are, my friend. Take your stance but be open. Be willing to listen to somebody else but share your views with them. Let them know why you are the left of, of center of being a conservative or right of center or wherever it is, you know, you may be. There's nothing wrong with that. Alright? But also respect where they are and have these conversations. Walk across the cafeteria. You're not going to lose anything by doing that. Okay? If anything, you will gain some friends. If you don't gain the friend, you will gain respect. Alright? You're not gonna have anything less than you already had by doing that. And I by the way, I love the Lingerie Blues. You know, Little Milton and Albert King. Oh my goodness. Little Milton. Yes. Yes. Yes. Love Little Milton. And, you know, he's passed away now. You know, I got to I got to play, you know, some gigs with him. Alright. Alright. So say a word about fear and how you see that as being a part of the challenge that we face. Okay. So let me give you a quick story. What the guy that you saw in the CNN video. Alright? He didn't know I was black. My secretary called him and set up the interview, and I told her, do not tell him that I'm black. This is he was my first interview. And because, I was already told by in fact, by the guy I met at the Silver Dollar Lounge, don't fool with him. He will kill you. And this guy was genuinely concerned for my safety. So because he liked me. You know, he's coming to my gigs and stuff. And I went to him and said, hey. You know, I wanna interview Klan people all over the country. I wanna start here in Maryland. Hook me up with the leader. He didn't wanna do it. He was he was fearful for his safety and my safety if he took a black man to this Klan leader. And I said, well, you know, give me his phone number and his address and stuff. He did it very reluctantly and begged me not to tell the guy where I got his information. I said, okay. So I had my secretary call the guy and say, listen. Just tell him that you work for somebody who's writing a book on the plan. Would he consent to sitting down and giving me an interview? Do not tell mister Kelly that I'm black. If he asked, don't lie to him, but don't give him reason to ask. She said, okay. So the reason why I did that was not to deceive him or anything like that. I'm not deceptive that way. I figured that I wanted him to reject me in person once he saw me. Alright? And, you know, give me up here to see me, and then let him decide if he wants to do the interview or leave me or whatever. Also, the fact that if he knew I was black in advance and he accepted the invitation, in the interim, he would have time to prepare, perhaps, different answers for a black interviewer than he would give to a white interviewer asking the same questions. So I wanted it to be spontaneous candid. She understood. She called him. He agreed to do the interview. Didn't ask what color I was. So when he showed up at the motel, he came with an armed bodyguard, and the guy had a had a gun and a holster on his hip. And the bodyguard walked in the room and saw me and just froze because, you know, he's looking for a white guy. And the grand dragon mister Kelly came in behind him and didn't realize the guy had stopped and bumped into his back and knocked the guy forward. And now they're all, like, looking around the room like, uh-uh. Somebody's not right here. You know, is this an ambush or, you know, did we get the wrong room number? What's going on here? So I stood up and I displayed my hands, like, hey. There's nothing in my hands. So they came in. I walked forward. I shook I shook their hands. They shook hands, and mister Kelly had a seat. And the bodyguard stood at attention to his right. And I sat across a little lamp table from him, took the lamp off. I had a bag beside me, a black canvas bag. In my bag, I had a bible, and I had a blank cassette, and I put a cassette recorder in the table. And why do I have the bible? Because the Klan claims to be a Christian organization, and they claim that the that the bible preaches racial separation. So I want to be able to reach down and get my bible and say, here, mister Kelly, please, show me where it says, blacks and whites must be separate. So I'm all prepared. So he and I are talking, and every time he made some biblical proclamation that I did not believe, I'd reach down to get my bible to for him to show me where. Or if the if the tape recorder ran out of tape, I'd reach down to get a fresh cassette. Every time I reach down like this, the bodyguard would reach up like this to his hip and put his hand on the butt of the gun. Now he's doing his job. That's his job to protect his boss. I'm the enemy. He doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know what's in my bag. So he's doing his job. I got that. You know, so I was cool with that. After about 45 minutes of that, he relaxed. And every time I went in the bag, he didn't move. He was cool. He realized there was no threat. So mister Kelly and I are just talking. And all of a sudden, a little over an hour into this thing, there was a very fast, very short noise that came out of nowhere. Went like a and we all jumped. Like, what was you know? And I knew that mister Kelly made the noise. How did I know that? Because I didn't make it. So he had to have made it. You know, process of elimination. Right? And so I jumped up out of my chair because I asked you to come across that table because I feared for my life. I feared for my life because in my head, I'm thinking, what did I do to cause him to go off and make some weird noise? And I'm thinking about that other Klansman telling me, Darryl, don't fall with Roger Kelly. He'll kill you. So I didn't wanna die that day. My secretary is sitting to my left on top of the dresser because there were no more chairs in the room. And I'm getting ready to come across that table, grab him, grab the bodyguard, slam them down to the ground, and take away the bodyguard's gun. I'm not armed. My secretary is not armed. So I've gone in into survival mode. And, you know, there are very few things you can do. One is to do a preemptive strike. Get them before they get you. So that's what I saw my way to do. When I came up, I'm looking right into his face, into his eyes. And I didn't say a word, but I knew he could read my eyes. My eyes were saying to him, what did you just do? His eyes have fixated on my eyes, and his eyes were asking me the same question. What did you just do? And the bodyguard had his hand on his gun again, looking at both of us like, what do either one of y'all just do? Well, Mary, my secretary, she's sitting on the dresser, she realized what had happened, and she began explaining it. Before they even arrived, I sent her down the hallway with some money to get soda pop out of the machine out of the vending machine, put it in the ice bucket, fill it with ice, get it cold, because I want to be able to offer my guest a cold drink, you know, if he came in the room. And so it was sitting over there on the dresser, and we'd long ago forgotten about it because we're so engaged. The ice was melting, and the cans were falling down the ice. That was it. Somebody almost got shot over an ice cube over another ice cube. But we all began laughing when she explained it to us, and that proved that we all are human beings. We felt fear. We felt relief. But here is the lesson learned. All because some foreign, foreign being that bucket of ice cans of soda, of which we were ignorant, had entered our little comfort zone via the noise that it made, we became fearful of each other. So ignorance breeds fear. We fear those things of which we're ignorant, that noise. If we don't address that fear, that fear will escalate into hatred because we hate the things that frighten us. If you don't address that hatred, that will escalate into destruction. We wanna destroy the things that we hate. Why? Because they scare us. But guess what? At the end of the day, they may have been harmless, and we were simply ignorant. So I say this, Let's forget about the destruction. Forget it. What's destroyed is not coming back. Alright? That's just a symptom of the nucleus. Let's forget about the hatred. That's another symptom of the nucleus, the root cause. Let's forget about the fear, another byproduct of the root cause. The root cause is ignorance. If we cure the ignorance, then there's nothing to fear. With nothing to fear, there's nothing to hate. With nothing to hate, there's nothing to get mad about and destroy. The good thing is this. There is a cure for ignorance. That cure is called education and exposure, and that is where we need to devote our time, our energy, our money, and our efforts into curing that ignorance. And then we won't have to worry about all of those other byproducts, fear, hate, and destruction, and we can do it. We gotta we gotta we gotta redirect our way of thinking. It's sort of like how we work now. We always thought about getting up and leaving the house and going to a job and sitting behind a desk. Now we're reprogramming that we can telecommute and work from home. So we gotta we change our way of thinking as how we address these issues, and we can do it because I've been doing it. So we've got about 5 more minutes. Nasheed, I've got a favorite question I wanna ask. I'll just refer to you to ask the next one. Okay. Well, the words you share have a measure of poetry to it. And there's a kind of a rhythm in the relationships that you allow to occur. You plant a seed, you nurture it with water and conversation and understanding and respect, and you watch it grow. The gentleman you said you went to the funeral of, you mentioned something that I wanted to make sure came to light. You saw the growth in him. You saw the evolution in his thoughts. And when did you, in your travels and, and learning from people, when did you realize you, mister Davis, had the ability to see the good in people? You know? As opposed to just a result, to see that evolution in people, that's a skill. I began seeing it the more I would converse with these people because I never dreamed, I would see them more than once. Mhmm. It was never my intent to make friends. It was never my intent to convert. You know, all I want to know was how can you hate me when you don't know me? So I wanna know that I don't need to see you again. But when you're talking to somebody, oh, you like that? Well, I like that too. Yeah. I saw that movie. Yeah. I thought that part was funny. You know? And then you're beginning that relationship that you never dreamed about because I came in thinking, tigers do not change their stripes. Why would a Klansman change his robe and hood? But guess what? I was wrong. I learned something. So I'm capable of learning things too. Ah, now I like that. You saw the learning and evolution in yourself. That's the point of integrity. And so when you saw your growth, you were able to identify growth in others. Right. Take away, Liz. And you know what I would say to anybody out there listen. I am just a rock and roll piano player. I am not a psychologist. I'm not a sociologist. You know? I probably should be because I probably make more money than I do playing rock and roll. No. You're exceptional. You're exceptional. Gosh. If I can do this as a rock and roll piano player, any one of you all can do this. Seriously. Perfect segue to this question from Kami, who directs the USC Center For the Political Future. If you had a magic wand, how would you get more people to reconcile around race and politics? How would you create, and I love this vision, this picture in our heads. How would you create a force of 33,000,000 Daryl Davises, which is just 10% of the US population? Well, you know what? You, Liz, and you, Nasheed, are creating them right now by the people, like the gentleman who wrote in his chat about how you overcome the fear about speaking to people with whom you disagree. You know, you are you are helping to create those kinds of people because we're giving them the tools and the tips. They're interested in in doing this work. Mhmm. So it's important. And I really appreciate, you know, you're having me on this show because a lot of people don't wanna talk about this kind of stuff. It's the elephant in the room that we don't talk about. But you all, you know, have taken that that bold step to have these conversations and share them with your public. So thank you all very much for helping to create that. Your film opens with an RFK quote. I don't know if you can call that up. I have a longer version of it, but it's sort of what you've said reminds me of that. It says few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us work to change a small portion of events. And then, basically, that that becomes who our generation is and what we do. Yes. Indeed. Nice. Yes. Indeed. Thank you, gentlemen, for spending this time with us tonight. I really have had had tears in my eyes most of the time. I am so touched and honored, mister Davis. Just, wow. Thank you for being who you who you are and who you inspire us to become. Now listen, we've sat on this thing here for a couple of hours. You need to call me Daryl. Alright. Daryl. Daryl. Thank you. Any closing thoughts from you? I would just say, Daryl, you set the bar. You set the bar. You've you found a wonderful way to blend, scholarship because you're a wonderful researcher, humanity and understanding people, but also what's in yourself. You're very personable and I believe you are allowing people to see that they can be that change that they won't in the world. And I also wanna make sure that the general public who are listening and participating, take a look at Willis Ware's list of podcasts and programs, not just this one, but the ones in the past. We look at truth, we look at power, and we look at civic engagement. We have a lot on the horizon, so thank you. You're I'm gonna as an end cap to your comment, Nasheed, we got a, a comment in from the audience that you just used the term human decency. Isn't this fundamentally about greater human understanding, which is the purpose of the humanities? I thought you'd like that comment. That is beautiful. That is beautiful. Gentlemen, thank you so, so, so much for spending this time with us. On behalf of Florida Humanities, the Village Square, and our streaming partners, we'd like to thank all of you out in the audience for being with us too. Good night, everyone. Good night. Wow. Corey, Nathan, back with you. What amazing stories and a truly inspiring testament to the fact that, as we always say, reaching out with an open heart and an open mind to someone who doesn't look or think like you, really can't change everything. What strikes me about Daryl's experiences is that by making a human connection, for 1, we have to risk something. We risk literally putting ourselves in harm's way. But Daryl's openness to meeting another human being, as well as on the part of the guys who were part of the KKK at all levels, they were putting themselves at risk too. But making that human connection and not just that, Daryl's demeanor and his wisdom for how to engage with someone was profound. It was it was earth shattering, or I should say it was hate shattering. Hate shattering. We gotta do a little bit more of that. Shattering hate. Because if you meet with someone in person and give them the benefit of treating them with a baseline of respect and listen, really seek to listen to them, as opposed to just trying to shatter their perceptions and beliefs as wrong as you think they are. Like the kid who saw the magic act where the lady got sawed in half, listening first goes a long way to making a person feel seen and understood as opposed to picking a fight right out of the gate. But meeting someone, seeing them as a human being, listening to them, those are all signs of respect. And all that goes a long way to cutting through the calluses of hate. As Daryl said a couple times, a tiger can't change its stripes, but people aren't born with hatred. It's learned, and what's learned can be unlearned. So if Tiger can't change its stripes, but a Klansman can turn in his hood and robes. And if that's possible, and it is, Daryl Davis is a lifetime experience to prove it, anything is possible. So with that, it's time to close out today. Please consider joining our members and supporting this program. You can become a member for just $7 a month or $76 a year, and your business can join for $250. So go to village square dot us slash donate to join today. That's village square dot us slash donate. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with everything happening at the Village Square. Go to village square dot us. Scroll to the bottom for the sign-up box. Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Check out Florida Humanities online at floridahumanities.org. It's floridahumanities.org. We appreciate you listening to Hate Undone with special guest, Daryl Davis. And until next time, as I said earlier, we challenge you to reach out with an open heart and open mind to someone who doesn't look or think like you. It really does change everything. We'll talk to you soon, and thanks so much for listening to Village Squarecast.