EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,003 words- 0:02 – 5:33
A blues gig sparks an unlikely Klan connection
- JRJoe Rogan
Two, one. (clapperboard snaps) Good? Hello, Daryl.
- DDDaryl Davis
Hey, Joe. How are you doing?
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure, for, uh, thank you for being here. Really, really-
- DDDaryl Davis
Uh, pleasure's all mine.
- JRJoe Rogan
... really appreciate it.
- DDDaryl Davis
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, I read your story. Uh, I saw a thing about you on NPR and, uh, it's crazy. You've converted how many people? 200 KKK members? You've got them to drop their robes?
- DDDaryl Davis
Right. Some directly, some indirectly, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did that all happen?
- DDDaryl Davis
Wow. (laughs) Uh, you know, (clears throat) I keep running into these guys. I'm a, I'm a musician by trade.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DDDaryl Davis
So, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Blues musician, right?
- DDDaryl Davis
Rock and roll, blues, swing, jazz. My degree's in jazz, but hey, I'll, I'll play whatever you want me to play.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
You're paying, I'm playing. (laughs) So, um, you know, everybody likes music, you know, even the KKK.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
So used that to, uh, to my advantage. Um, I was playing in a bar one night in, uh, Frederick, Maryland, an all-white bar. And when I say all white, I don't mean that Blacks couldn't go in. What I mean is that, uh, Blacks chose not to go in. They weren't welcome. And here I was in this bar with this country band, a friend of mine's band. I was only Black guy in the band, only Black guy in the bar. And upon finishing the first set, this, um ... I'm walking to the, to the band table and somebody came up and put their arm around my shoulder. I turn around to see who it was. It was a white gentleman, maybe 15, 18 years older than me. And, um, he says, "Yeah, yeah, I really enjoy your all's music." I said, "Thank you," and shook his hand. And he pointed at the stage and said, "You know, I've seen this here band before, but I ain't never seen you before. Where'd you come from?" And I explained, "Yeah, you know, they told me they played here before, but this is my first time in this place. I just joined the band." And he said, "Well, man, I really like your piano playing. This is the first time I ever heard a Black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
And (laughs) I wasn't, um, I wasn't offended, but I was rather surprised 'cause as, as I said, you know, this guy's, like, maybe 15 years older than me, and he didn't, he did not know the, uh, Black origin of Jerry Lee Lewis's style of piano playing. Um, I, I explained it to him, "I got it from the same place Jerry Lee did, from Black blues and boogie-woogie piano players." Well, the guy was incredulous, "Oh, no, no, no. Jerry Lee invented that. I never heard no Black man play like that, except for you." So I'm thinking, "Okay, well this, this guy never heard of Little Richard or, or, uh, Fats Domino." And, uh, (clears throat) I said, "Look, man, I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a friend of mine. He's told me himself where he learned how to play." The guy did not buy that I knew Jerry Lee. He didn't buy that Jerry Lee learned anything from Black people. But he was so fascinated that he wanted to buy me a drink. I was, I was like a novelty to him. So went back to his table, I had a cranberry juice, and then he announces, "This is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a Black man." And now I'm, I'm the one who's incredulous. Like, how can that be? You know, I'd sat down with thousands of white people, anybody else, had a meal, a beverage, a conversation. How was it that this guy had never done that? And innocently, I asked him, I said, "Why?" He didn't answer me at first. He stared down at the tabletop. And I asked him again, and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him in the side and said, "Tell him, tell him, tell him." I said, "Tell me." You know, I'm trying to figure out what is this mystery. He looks at, at me just as plain as day and he says, "I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan." Well, I burst out laughing.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Uh, you know, because (laughs) he was-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
It was getting weirder by the second.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yeah.
- DDDaryl Davis
And, uh, (clears throat) I knew a lot about the Klan. Uh, I, I'd been studying racism since I was a 10-year-old kid 'cause of an incident that happened to me back then. And I bought books on Black supremacy, white supremacy, the KKK, the Nazis, the neo-Nazis, um, try- to try to understand this mentality. And I knew a Klansman would not come up and just throw his arm around some Black guy's shoulder and praise his talent and wanna, you know, hang out with him and buy him a drink. So, you know, this guy's jerking me around. So I'm laughing and he goes inside his pocket and pulls out his wallet and produces his Klan membership card.
- JRJoe Rogan
They have cards?
- DDDaryl Davis
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he gave me his, uh, card. I looked at it and I recognized the, uh, Klan insignia, which is a, uh, red circle with a white cross and a red blood drop in the center of the cross. And I realized, "Oh, man, this thing's for real." So I stopped laughing. It wasn't funny anymore. And I gave it back to him and we chatted about the Klan and different things, but the dude gave me his phone number and wanted me to call him whenever I was to return to this bar so he could bring his friends, meaning Klansmen and Klanswomen, to see this Black guy play like Jerry Lee. I'm not sure he called me a Black guy to his friends, but ... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) But, uh, I said, "I'll call you."
- 5:33 – 11:25
The childhood incident that formed his core question about racism
- DDDaryl Davis
So that was fine. And, um, (clears throat) I decided later on I would write a book because I'd been looking for an answer to a question that I had formed when I was age 10. My question was, "How can you hate me when you don't even know me?" And this was a result of having marched in a Cub Scout parade at the age of 10, being the only Black scout in this, uh, parade.... and while most people on the streets and sidewalks were cheering us, uh, we were marching from Lexington to Concord, Massachusetts to, uh, commemorate the ride of Paul Revere. And people were like waving flags and yelling and screaming, "The British are coming," and all a good time, except for one small pocket of people who were throwing rocks and bottles at me. And at age 10, um, my first thought was, "Oh, those people over there don't like the scouts." Uh, that's how naive I was. It wasn't until my den mother, my cub master, my troop leader all came rushing over and huddled over me with their bodies, these are white people, and escorted me out of the danger, that I realized I was the only target 'cause nobody else was getting this protection.
- JRJoe Rogan
And these were adults or these were other children?
- DDDaryl Davis
These were a couple, uh, it was maybe about five people. I remember there, you know, a couple of kids, maybe my age, a year older, uh, and some adults.
- JRJoe Rogan
Adults were throwing rocks-
- DDDaryl Davis
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and bottles at a 10-year-old boy?
- DDDaryl Davis
That's correct. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DDDaryl Davis
And, um, you know, I, (clears throat) I kept saying to, to the, my, uh, my scout leaders, "I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything," 'cause now I'm trying to find out what did I do?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DDDaryl Davis
You know, wh- why are they doing this to me?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DDDaryl Davis
And they kept, you know, shushing me, telling me to hurry up and move along, it'll be okay. So they never answered the question as to why this was happening. When I got home that day after this parade, my mother and father who were not there, were putting Mercurochrome and Band-Aids on me, and asking me how did I fall down and get all scraped up. I told them 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. At the age of 10, I had never heard the term racism. Now-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what year was this?
- DDDaryl Davis
1968. Okay? Um, I'll tell you why. Because my dad was a US Foreign service, so he spent a lot of time overseas. Every two years, you go to a country, you're there for two years, come back home for a few months, and then you get reassigned to another country. So (clears throat) when I was overseas, m- uh, in elementary school, my classes were filled with kids from all over the world. Anybody who had an embassy in those countries, all us embassy kids went to the same school. My class was full of kids from Nigeria, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, you name it. Um, if you were to open the door to my classroom and stick your head in, you would say, "This looks like a United Nations of little kids," 'cause that's exactly what it was, and we all got along. Then I would come home after that two-year assignment and I would be in either all Black schools or all white schools. I'm sorry, all Black schools or all Black and white schools, meaning the, uh, still segregated or the newly integrated schools. And there was not the amount of diversity in my classroom that I had overseas. Today, you walk into a classroom, you know, you can't tell where pe- people are from, from all over. So literally, um, between 1961 and like 1968, 1970, I was living about 12 years into the future when I was living overseas-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... because that, that multicultural scene had yet to come to this country. And, um, when it did, of course, I was already prepared. Unfortunately, many of my peers were not. So I didn't experience racism. Had I lived here my, you know, my whole life, I might have had a different perspective and not taken this path. Um, so I was very curious about it and fascinated with it. Like, how can somebody hate you when they don't even know you? It was just beyond my comprehension. And I knew something was wrong because the people who did this to me did not look any different than my little French friends, my Swedish friends, or my fellow Americans from the embassy, or for that matter, my fellow Americans right there, you know, at the school where I went, where we did the march. So I knew it wasn't a color thing. In fact, when my parents told me this, I did not believe my parents. I thought for some reason my parents are lying to me, 'cause my 10-year-old brain could not process the idea that someone who had never seen me, had never spoken to me, knew nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin. So, I did not believe them. Well, a month and a half later, that same year, 1968, on April the 4th, Martin Luther King was assassinated and I remember it very well. Uh, we were in Massachusetts, same place and, uh, nearby Boston, Washington DC, my hometown, Chicago, Illinois, uh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Richmond, LA all burned to the ground with violence and destruction, all in the name of this new word that I had learned called racism. And so then I realized my parents had told me the truth. This, this phenomenon called racism does exist, but why? I didn't understand why. Okay, so it's here, but why? And
- 11:25 – 15:14
Turning curiosity into research: writing a book from face-to-face interviews
- DDDaryl Davis
so that's when I formed that question, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And so I've been looking for the answer to that question now for 51 years. I'm, uh, 61 years old. So, um, after I, uh, I, I, um, met this Klansman, sure, oh, maybe, I don't know, three or four months later, I quit that band and went back to playing rock and roll and blues and R&B. And then it dawned on me, "Daryl, you know, the answer that you've been seeking since age 10 fell right into your lap." Um, who better to ask that question of how can you hate me when you don't even know me than to ask it-... of somebody who would go so far as to join an organization whose whole premise has been hating people who do not look like them and who do not believe as they believe. And this organization has been around for over a hundred years. Somebody who would go that far to join the KKK should damn sure have an answer to your question.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
So, get back in contact with that guy and why don't you write a book? 'Cause I had every book, I still do, every book written on the Klan. And they all were written by white authors, obviously, because a white author would have, you know, less fear of ra- ramifications talking to a Klansman or interviewing them, um, who had easier access or could join the clan undercover, get the story, get out and write about it. So my book became the first book ever written by a Black author on the Ku Klux Klan from the perspective of sitting down face to face. I decided I would go around the country, interview Klan leaders there in Maryland where I live, up North, down South, Midwest and West. And I, I, I said I would start right there in Maryland. So (clears throat) I got ahold of that guy and I wanted him to introduce me to the Klan leader from Maryland.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was his reaction?
- DDDaryl Davis
When, um, when I told him I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you mind g- grabbing the microphone just pull, just pull-
- DDDaryl Davis
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it a little closer to you. There you go.
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Perfect.
- DDDaryl Davis
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was his reaction when you called him up and said, "Hey, I want to know what makes you guys tick. Like, why are you doing this?"
- DDDaryl Davis
Well, actually (laughs) it's a little funnier than that. Um, (laughs) the, uh, I, um, I found the guy's number, you know, from the bar, from Silver Dollar Lounge and, um, I called it. This is like months later and it, it had been, it had been disconnected so I had to track him down. Turned out he had moved, he didn't have a phone, but I was able to get an address. And so I had no way of know- you know, letting him know, "I'm gonna come over and talk to you." So I showed up at his apartment one evening and knocked on the door. And, um, I hadn't seen the guy in a while, right? He opens the door and sees me and goes, "Daryl!" You know, "What are you doing here?" And he, and he steps out into the hallway and looks up and down the hallway to see if I brought anybody with me. And, and when he stepped out of his apartment, I stepped in. So he turned around, he comes back in, he goes, "What's going on? You still playing? What's going on?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm playing, but, um, I need to talk to you about the Klan." He says, "The Klan?" I said, "Yeah, you're a member, right?" He goes, "Well, I was, but I quit." And he went into this long dissertation as to why he quit the Klan. So long story short, I said, "I want to meet the Klan leader."
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he quit the Klan because of his interaction with you?
- DDDaryl Davis
No. Not, no. (laughs) Actually, he, he lied to me. Um, yes, he was no longer in the Klan, but, uh, what happened was, he said he, he quit because he didn't, he didn't like, um, their, their, uh, ideology. I later found out, um, in my research that, and I got this from the guy who banished him, the, the leader of the, of that particular Klan group.
- JRJoe Rogan
Banished? (laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's their term, they banish you.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 15:14 – 20:20
Inside the Klan’s structure: splinter groups, titles, and rivalries
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay. So, um, every, uh, year, um, Klan groups from all... Okay, first of all, let me, let me explain the hierarchy of the Klan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay? Today, there is no such thing as the Ku Klux Klan. All right? Um, there used to be. There, today there are many Ku Klux Klan groups, and they all are autonomous. They use the same name, Ku Klux Klan. You might have the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the, uh, Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Rebel Knights, on and on and on. These are all separate Ku Klux Klan groups. They believe in the same ideology, they wear the same colors on their robes that designate their rank, uh, they have the same secret handshake, the same-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the secret handshake? Just in case-
- DDDaryl Davis
Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll-
- JRJoe Rogan
... somebody-
- DDDaryl Davis
I'll show it to you. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Should I do it later?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah, yeah, we'll do it later. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, we can't tell people in case somebody-
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... shakes their hand, they don't even know?
- DDDaryl Davis
I can't reveal Klan secrets. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay. Serious stuff.
- DDDaryl Davis
But, uh, oh, yeah. Uh, same passwords, everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
They have passwords?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hilarious.
- DDDaryl Davis
And, and, okay, understand, um, the Klan was formed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War and it was formed by, uh, by six, uh, Confederate soldiers, um, who were of Irish and Scottish descent and what they did was they borrowed, uh, the, the rituals or similar rituals and names and, uh, mystery from the Scottish Rite, the Masons, you know, grandness and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... all that kind of stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wizards and shit?
- DDDaryl Davis
Exactly. Precisely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Don't they have dragons?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yep, yep, okay? So here's how the hierarchy works. All right so, like I said over the years, central split apart into different splinter groups of Klan. So, and they all are rivals with each other. If you see couple different Klan groups out in public they will hold a un- a, uh, you know, unified front. But behind closed doors, they don't like each other.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. You know, you know, "We're a real Klan," you know, you know, "They're a wanna be Klan."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- DDDaryl Davis
That kind of thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
That kinda thing.
- 20:20 – 27:28
Tracking down Grand Dragon Roger Kelly: the ‘Klan bar’ search
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) But, uh, anyway, this guy didn't, uh, I want him to introduce me to Roger Kelly. I want, I want Roger to be, to be my first interview. And he was terrified. He said, "No, I can't do it, Daryl. You know, we both would get in trouble." I said, "But you're not in the Klan anymore." He said, "It doesn't matter. I cannot take a Black man to the grand dragon." So, he was concerned, genuinely, for my safety, as well as his own. And I said, "Well look, why don't you give me Mr. Kelly's address and phone number? And, um, I will go to his house and talk to him." And he would not do that. I begged and pleaded for 20 minutes. He finally gave me Mr. Kelly's address and phone number.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DDDaryl Davis
On the condition that I not tell Mr. Kelly where I got it. And, um, I said okay, and then he warned me, he said, "Daryl-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Boy, that guy could crack under pressure.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Oh yeah, a lot of them... Oh, uh- uh, I wanted to tell you w- why he got banished.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DDDaryl Davis
But that's coming, that's coming later.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, he warned you?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah, he warned me. And, uh, he said, "Daryl do not, you know, go, do not go to Roger Kelly's house. He'll kill you." And then he said, "There's a bar up in Thurmont, Maryland." Now you know Thurmont, Maryland. Uh, you don't know it from the Klan, but that was one of their headquarters. You know Thurmont, Maryland because it's also the home of Camp David, the presidential retreat. And, and the headquarters for the Klan is right d- right down the road.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's hilarious.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. And Thurmont at the time was an all-white town. Anytime a Black, uh, person moved in or interracial couple or a gay couple, somehow mysteriously, a cross would be burned in their yard and boom, they'd move right out. Now, that does not, that does not mean that every person in Thurmont is in the Klan, 'cause they're not. In fact, most white people up there wanted the Klan gone, but that's where it was headquartered. So, um, he said, "There's a bar up there where they hang out every Saturday night," and if I, if I go to that bar, I'm sure to find Roger Kelly and, um, you know, unless they're at a town rally in somewhere. He says, "But I don't guarantee you that Roger will even talk to you, but you're safer to approach him in a public place than, um, go on his property."
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he give you a photograph of him? How'd you find him?
- DDDaryl Davis
No, no. I, I knew what Roger Kelly looked like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DDDaryl Davis
... 'cause he was always in the newspaper or on the news, you know, being interviewed, something like that. I never met him but I knew, you know, his image. So (clears throat) , he, he drew me a little map, how to get to this place. And so this is on Saturday night-
- JRJoe Rogan
Save them.
- DDDaryl Davis
Let me turn that thing off. And, um, he, uh, he says, um, uh, "Do not, um, do not ap- you know, approach him on his own property." I said, "All right." So, I, you know, I'm a musician. I'm, I'm working Saturday nights. I can't go, you know, go chasing the Klan on a Saturday night. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Just a hobby. (laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. So at, at that point it wasn't. Now it's a full time profession. Um, I call my secretary who books my band, I said, "You know, do I have any Sundays off?" I figure Sunday's still part of the weekend, maybe he hangs out there on a Sunday too. She s- so she found me a couple Sundays and I said, "Okay, I'm gonna go find this Roger Kelly guy." She goes, "Well, I wanna go with you." Now here's the problem. She's white. Not that I have a problem with that, but a Black man walk, with, with a white woman walk into a Klan bar? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, could be more of a problem.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. You might find them sooner than you want. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DDDaryl Davis
So, um, I said, I said, "You know, Mary," and she said, "No, no, I wanna go." I said, "All right, you know, you go at your own risk." She said, "All right." So we drove up there this particular Sunday evening, it's about an hour and a half from my house and, um, my guy gave me perfect directions. There's the place, right there. Boom. We lock the car, (clears throat) walk up these little steps and I told her, I said, "Look, I'm gonna walk in first. You, you walk right in behind me. If I turn around and face you, start running and I'll be behind you." And she says, "All right, let's go." So we walk in-Pl- about 7:30 on a Sunday evening, place was practically empty. I would say maybe no more than six or seven people in there. Couple guys in the back playing pool, a guy or two sitting at the, uh, bar. And, uh, the guy had told me the, uh, th- this was a Klan bar, and what he meant by Klan bar is the Klan doesn't own it, but that's where they hang out. And he, he described it to me that when you walk in the door, to your left will be a row of booths, and the first two booths closest to the door where you come in are reserved for the Klan. So now, uh, you know, I looked over there and nobody was sitting there. So I'm looking around, see if I recognize Roger Kelly, and I didn't see anybody that looked like him, which did not mean that some of these people weren't Klan. Um, but I said, "You know what?" And, and to my right was a, um, a long bar. Behind the bar was a mirror, and scotch taped to the mirror was a picture and an article from the Washington Post newspaper. Had a picture of Roger Kelly. They'd interviewed him about something. He, uh, he, the NAACP was suing them over some kinda cross-burning ceremony or something, and I recognized the article. I said, "Wow," y- and there's a big Confederate flag on the back wall like you have the US flag right there. Um, so I knew, I knew I was in the right place or the wrong place, (laughs) depending upon how you wanna look at it, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
So, uh, I didn't see anybody who looked, who looked like Roger Kelly. I figured, you know, I drove an hour and a half to get up here, you know, I don't wanna go home empty-handed, but (clears throat) I didn't want to just walk up to somebody and say, "Hey, excuse me, sir. Are you in the Klan?" (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 27:28 – 38:44
The motel interview: armed ‘Grand Nighthawk’ and raw racist talking points
- DDDaryl Davis
he may have different answers prepared in the interim than he would have for a White interviewer as opposed to a Black interviewer. So I wanted to be spontaneous, candid. So she understood, and then she called him and he agreed to do the interview. So we set it up for the motel above the Silver Dollar Lounge up there in Frederick, Maryland at 5:15 on a Sunday afternoon, and, uh, Mary and I got there, oh man, I don't know, several hours early. Um, I gave her some money, sent her down the hall to get, uh, some soda pop out of the machine, put it in the ice bucket, fill it with ice, get it all cold, uh, so, you know, I could o- I could offer, uh, Mr. Kelly a beverage, a cold beverage. I had no idea what this man would do once he laid eyes on me and saw that I was Black. Would he come in the room? Would he attack me or would he walk away? You know? But in any event, I wanted to be hospitable. So she got the soda pop, put it in the ice bucket, set it on the dresser. Now, just by happenstance, the way the room is laid out, if you are standing in the hallway, in the doorway of, of the room looking into the room, you cannot see who's in the room. You have to literally walk in the door and turn to your right, and the room is laid out back there. So there's no way you can know who's in the room standing in the hallway, and so I took advantage of that. I took the lamp table, took the lamp off, and put it in the most obscure corner of the room, and I put a chair on one side for me and a chair on the other side for Mr. Kelly. And I had a little bag beside me, a little, like, duffel bag. And in my bag, I had a cassette recorder, blank cassette tapes, and a copy of the Bible because the Ku Klux Klan claims to be a Christian organization, and they claim that the Bible preaches racial separation. Now, I've read through the Bible. I've never seen that in there. So I wanted to be able to pull out my Bible when he brings it up and say, "Here, Mr. Kelly. Show me, please, in this King James Version, chapter and verse where it says Blacks and Whites must be separate." So I'm all prepared, right? Right on time at 5:15, (knocks) knock on the door. I'm seated there where you can't see me until you come in the room. Mary hops up, and, uh, uh, uh, by the way, Mary's White and, uh, as I, as I mentioned before. So she goes around the corner, opens the door. In walks what is known as the Grand Nighthawk. Nighthawk in Klan terminology means bodyguard, security. (laughs) So a Grand Nighthawk would be a bodygu-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Their names, their names are so ridiculous. Cyclopses and dragons-
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and wizards and nighthawks.
- DDDaryl Davis
Oh, it goes on and on. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
It goes on and on.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Of course it does.
- DDDaryl Davis
Uh, a Grand Kludd, a Grand Klabie.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Mm.
- DDDaryl Davis
Grand Magi, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, so the Grand Nighthawk, which means-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
... bodyguard of the Grand Dragon-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... like an Imperial Nighthawk would be the bodyguard of the Imperial Wizard. In walks in th- this, uh, Grand Nighthawk. He's wearing military camouflage, (clears throat) and, uh, on one side of his chest is that Klan emblem, that red circle, white cross, blood drop. On the other side are the initials KKK, uh, embroidered on his beret that said Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. And on his hip he had a semi-automatic handgun in a holster. He comes in, and Mr. Kelly is walking directly behind him in a dark blue suit and tie. And when the Nighthawk turned the corner and saw me, he just froze. And Mr. Kelly did not realize that his Nighthawk had stopped short, and he slammed into his back and knocked him forward. And so they're stumbling around, regaining their balance, and looking all around the room. And I'm just wat- watching them, and I could see w- the apprehension in their faces. You know, I, I could read it, you know. Uh, they were, they were thinking, "Did the desk clerk give us the right room number?" You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Or, "Is this an ambush? And what's going on here?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
So (laughs) I stood up and I displayed the palms of my hands, as, as to say, "Hey, I'm unarmed." And I walked forward. I stuck out my right hand and I said, "Hi, Mr. Kelly. I'm Daryl Davis." And he shook my hand. He shook my hand, and the Nighthawk shook my hand. So, so far so good. I'm doing, I'm doing well. I said, "Come on in. Come on in. Have a seat, please." Mr. Kelly sat down, even better, and the Nighthawk stood at attention to Mr. Kelly's right. So I'm getting ready to sit down opposite him, right? And Mr. Kelly says to me, "Mr. Davis, do you have any form of identification?" I said, "Sure." I produced my wallet and I handed him my driver's license. He looked at it and he goes, "Oh, you live on such-and-such street in Silver Spring." Now this had me a little concerned. Why is this man reading my street address? All he has to do is look at my name, look at my picture, match it up to me, and give me back my license. Here he is like looking at my address. Is he gonna come burn a cross on my lawn? What's up? So I did not wanna let him know that he had, you know, unnerved me a little bit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DDDaryl Davis
But I wanted to let him know, under no circumstances are you to come to my house uninvited with any, you know, nefarious, uh, intentions. So I said to him, I said, "Yes, Mr. Kelly. That is where I live. And you live at ..." And I named his house number and his street, you know, that the, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... former guy had given me. That way I was implying, hey, you know, you know where I live. I know where you live. If you come visit me, I'm gonna come visit you. So there was ... So, you know, we're gonna confine all this visiting to this motel room. So he smiled. He nodded his head like he understood. And I did not find out that day ... it was several months down the road ... that I had been presumptuous. I had no reason to fear Mr. Kelly coming to my house to do anything stupid. What had happened was one of his Klan members lived right down the road from me. I didn't know that. And Mr. Kelly would have to travel down my, my street to get into that neighborhood-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... where this Klan member lived. He simply recognized the name of the street. That was it. Pure coincidence.
- JRJoe Rogan
So he wasn't trying to threaten you.
- DDDaryl Davis
No. Not at all. Not at all. So, um, you know ... And today, that same Klan member is in a federal prison. He, he, he'll be there for a long time. He, he, he would later commit a hate crime which landed him in the federal, uh, penitentiary. So, um, anyway, we got on with this interview. And, um, within 10 minutes, um, Mr. Kelly let me know why he could hate people li- like me. Uh, Black people are inferior. Uh, we are prone to crime. They're, uh ... We, we're criminals. That is why there are more Blacks in prison than whites. Now, that's a half-truth. Um, there are indeed more Blacks in prison than white people. It's not because we're prone to crime, like he said. It's because of inequity in our judicial system, where whites in the same predicament, uh, either don't get the same jail time or don't go to jail or whatever. Um, anyway, (clears throat) so I'm a criminal. Uh, he also said that Black people are lazy. Uh, we don't wanna work. While ... We prefer to scam the government welfare system. We're looking for handouts and freebies and all that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... where white people, you know, you know, you know (snaps fingers) , they, they work, et cetera. Um, and also, this book called The Bell Curve had just recently come out, and, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Charles Murray.
- 38:44 – 50:59
The ice-bucket ‘almost fight’ and Davis’ core model: ignorance → fear → hate → destruction
- DDDaryl Davis
and I got that. So, um, you know, this kept happening, and, um, after a while, he realized there was no threat in the bag and I went in and out of the bag. Nighthawk didn't move. He was relaxed. Just over an hour into this interview, there was a sudden, a very quick, I mean, less than a second noise in the room. Went ch- ch- like that. That was it. And it happened so fast, out of nowhere, that my ear could not discern what it was. It just came out of the blue. And I'm sitting closer than you and I are right now, 'cause the table was smaller, to Mr. Kelly, and, and, and the Nighthawk w- was here and Mr. Kelly's right there, and I flew up out of my chair, hit the table. Um, because my ear could not discern what the noise was, I perceived it to be an ominous, threatening noise. Um, and I knew, I knew for a fact that Mr. Kelly had made this noise. Where did it come from? Why did he make it? Um, and how did I know that he made it? I knew that because I didn't make it. So you know, you, you know, if you, if you don't want to accept responsibility or you know you're not responsible, what do you do? You assign blame.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
Right? And, um, so I flew up out of my chair and hit the table and my mind was racing. What did I just do? What did I just say to cause Mr. Kelly to go off and make some threatening noise? You know? I instantly put everything in perspective. We're enemies. He's the head of the Klan. I'm a Black guy. And now, you know, and then I, I heard that former Klansman's voice in my head, "Daryl, do not fool with Roger Kelly. He will kill you." So I didn't want to die. And in that split second, I had gone into, uh, survival mode and when you fear for your life, that's what you do.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was the noise?
- DDDaryl Davis
I'm gonna tell you in a second.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. Uh, it was just shh. That was it.
- JRJoe Rogan
All right.
- DDDaryl Davis
And, um, because it was unexpected and it was so short, I couldn't discern it, I, you know, I, I, I went into, into self-protect mode and, um, how come I hit the table? Well, when you fear for your life, as I said, you know, you go into survival mode, and in survival mode, you know, you're only... you can only do like one of four things. Some people, they just pass out, they faint, because the fear is so great their brain cannot process it, and it shuts down and they pass out. Uh, other people, they, their, their muscles contract and they get tense and they can't move, and you can be punching them, kicking them, and they won't even be deflecting the blows. They're, they're all constricted. That's called paralysis by fear, that you're too afraid to move. Uh, the third thing people will do is, is to run away from whatever the, the fear is. And that is your best option. When something scares you that bad, take off. Separate yourself as quickly as you can from that fear. Put as much distance between you and the fear as you can. And that would have been my choice had it been an option, but it was not an option for me because you cannot outrun a bullet (laughs) in a motel room, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) So I was not armed. My secretary was not armed. The only person who I knew for sure who was armed was the Nighthawk. You know, you can see his gun right there. And I didn't know if, uh, if Mr. Kelly had a weapon up under his suit jacket or not. All I knew was, I don't wanna die today. So I chose the fourth option, which was to do a preemptive strike. You get them before they get you. So when I flew out of my chair, I was gonna dive across the table-I was gonna grab Mr. Kelly, grab the Nighthawk, and slam them down to the ground-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
... and take away the Nighthawk's gun.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- DDDaryl Davis
No, uh, it was gonna happen that quickly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whew.
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay? My, I, I think pretty fast, sometimes a little too fast. But I'm glad I hit the table 'cause I'm looking right into his eyes trying to figure out, like, "What did you do?" I didn't say one word to this guy, but my eyes had locked with his eyes. It was like I, I could see right through him. And I let my eyes do the talking. I, I knew he could hear my eyes. Um, g- my eyes were shouting at him saying, "What did you just do?" Well, his eyes had fixated on my eyes. He didn't say a word either, but I could read his eyes. His eyes are saying to me, "What did you just do?" And the Nighthawk had his hand on his gun looking at both of us like, "What did either one a y'all just do?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) Right? So... Mary was sitting to my left on top of the dresser, 'cause there were no more chairs, and she realized what had happened and she began explaining it to us when it happened again. The ice (laughs) in the ice bucket had begun to melt.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- DDDaryl Davis
And the cans shifted down the ice. Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- DDDaryl Davis
That wa- that was it.
- JRJoe Rogan
That-
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
So the tension was so thick-
- DDDaryl Davis
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that the ice in the bucket wasn't just like a normal... Like if there was ice in a bucket right now-
- DDDaryl Davis
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it'd be like, oh, it's just noise.
- 50:59 – 57:53
From interview to friendship: gigs, home visits, and attending Klan rallies
- DDDaryl Davis
So he, um, like I say, I thanked him. Uh, I began calling him. He'd come out to my gigs. He'd bring the Nighthawk. Um, I'd, I'd, uh, I'd invite him down to my house. He came down to my house with the Nighthawk.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DDDaryl Davis
Nighthawk would sit on my couch next to him. Sometimes Nighthawk would get bored, right, and pull out his gun and twirl it on his finger.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ. (laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) Yeah, I'm serious.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) And, um, but...
- JRJoe Rogan
What the fuck?
- DDDaryl Davis
I, I felt, I felt very comfortable, uh, with, with them, you know, after a time. And, um, so then at that point, I would begin inviting over some of my Black friends, some of my Jewish friends, some of my other white friends, ju-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you, like, let them know in advance?
- DDDaryl Davis
Sometimes. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Sometimes not?
- DDDaryl Davis
Sometimes not, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What did they say when they'd come over and they see a Grand Wizard and a Nighthawk?
- DDDaryl Davis
Uh, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or a dragon? Is he a dragon or a wizard?
- DDDaryl Davis
You know, he w- he was still a, uh, a dragon at that point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay? And, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
... sometimes they'd freak out. A- and my band, oh my God, my band.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Oh.
- DDDaryl Davis
Um, you know, we, I, I have a band van, so they all, they all show up at my house, get in the van, we all ride to the gig together. Especially if it's far away. Uh, and sometimes I'd, I don't wanna stop at some Klan rally on my way to a gig.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
And so... So (laughs) . So my guys would say, "Daryl," I said, "What?" "I'll just meet you there. You know, I, I'm not gonna ride with you." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ. Oh, that's... Ugh.
- DDDaryl Davis
So, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So this became a full-time project for you?
- 57:53 – 1:01:04
Robe receipts and real exits: how long it takes and how minds change
- DDDaryl Davis
So you know that, these, these are topics, you know, that, that they cover. Um, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty interesting, but check this out though. Um, our relationship would grow and grow and eventually, um, Mr. Kelly, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh Jesus.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you got there?
- DDDaryl Davis
He b- he, he began, he began-
- JRJoe Rogan
They give you their robes?
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you put this on and sneak right in.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. He began, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Don't take the hood off.
- DDDaryl Davis
... believing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa. That's him right there in that photo with you?
- DDDaryl Davis
That's him right there. That's h- in his grand dragon robe.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- DDDaryl Davis
This is, uh, his imperial wizard robe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- DDDaryl Davis
Right here. And, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
He gave you his robe?
- DDDaryl Davis
Gave me his robe because he no longer believes in what it stands for.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DDDaryl Davis
And, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
And how many years did it take-
- DDDaryl Davis
There's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
There it is.
- DDDaryl Davis
Huh?
- JRJoe Rogan
How many years did it take before you, just by being around him and talking to him-
- DDDaryl Davis
Um, for him it was probably like around maybe six and a half, seven.
- JRJoe Rogan
Six and a half, seven years.
- DDDaryl Davis
Now some, some it's, you know, it's a matter of months, a matter of a year or two years.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so what do you do, do you just talk... Is that the hat?
- 1:01:04 – 1:12:18
Countering racist ‘logic’: the ‘latent gene’ argument and flipping the script
- JRJoe Rogan
D- what did ... what is the process? Do ... when ... like, when you're talking about, like, the Charles Murray stuff, the bell curve stuff, how do you refute that? What are you saying to him?
- DDDaryl Davis
I'm saying to him, "Look, Mr. Murray, a- anytime you wanna prove something, you find something that fits your narrative."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DDDaryl Davis
You can find some- some Black person who has a very low IQ, okay? If, if, if I'm gonna ... if, if I work for Ford a- and, and I want ... and I wanna prove that my car is better than Chevrolet, then I'm gonna find a Chevrolet that doesn't ... that, that doesn't run very well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- DDDaryl Davis
You know, I'm, I'mma, I'mma do it that way. So I, I refuted Mr. Murray's and, and his, uh, his partner, the two guys who wrote the book, um, of their, their, their documentation. And, and I'll ... and see, they, they, they go by things that they can see and understand. I'm gonna give you an example of something that, that, that's gonna, uh, uh, help you understand. This Cyclops was riding around in my car one day with me. He's sitting in my passenger seat, right? And we're driving. I'm driving along, and somehow we got on the topic of, uh, of Black crime and he made a statement. He said, "Well, you know, you know, we all know, uh, they say that, you know ..." again, that they, authority.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DDDaryl Davis
Say that, um, that, uh, Black people have a gene in them that makes them violent. And I'd heard that before from other Klan people. You know, that, that's one of their narratives and, uh, you know, the wild, Black savage kinda thing. And, uh, I said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "Well, who's doing all the drive-bys and carjackings in Southeast?" He was referring to Southeast Washington, DC, which is a predominantly Black area. Some whites live there. It's predominantly Black, very high crime ridden. I said, "Okay, it's Black people." I said, "But that's what lives there." I said, "Who's doing all the crime in Bangor, Maine? White people, because that's what lives there." I said, "You know, you're not even considering the demographics." He said, "No, no, no, no. Y- you all have this gene," blah, blah, blah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
Uh, so you know, he's ... she'll shut me down. And, um, I said, "Look," he's right here. I said, "Look, I'm as Black as anybody you know." I said, "I have never done a drive-by, I have never done a carjacking. How do you explain that?" This man did not wait one second. He answered me like that. He said, "Your gene is latent. Hasn't come out yet."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
How do you argue with somebody who's that far in left field, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
I mean, you can't even bite into that and chew on it, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
So I'm dumbfounded and I'm speechless. I'm just driving along. He's over here all smug, "Mm-hmm, you see?" Nothing to say. And so I thought about it and I said, "You know, they say ..." I used his, his authority. I said, "They say that all white people have a gene that makes them a serial killer." He said, "Well, how do you figure that?" I said, "Name me three Black serial killers." He couldn't do it. I said, "Here, I'm gonna give you one." I named one for him. I said, "Here, just, just name me two." He couldn't do it. I said Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, uh, s- uh, David Berkowitz, Son of Sam.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ed Gein, Henry Lee Lucas.
- DDDaryl Davis
Ed Gein, right. Ed Gein and his crazy machine, it's the skin people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
Okay? I said, "Son, they're all white."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
"You're ... you're a serial killer."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) It's latent.
- DDDaryl Davis
Yeah. And, and, and he said, "Well, Daryl, I've never killed anybody." I said, "Your gene is latent. Hasn't come out yet."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. (laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
He goes, he goes, "Well, that's stupid." I said, "Well, duh." I said, "You're right, it is stupid." I said, "But it's no more stupid for me to say that about you-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
"... than what you said about me." And he got very quiet, but, I mean, you could almost see it, Joe, his wheels are like spinning.
- JRJoe Rogan
Gears. Yeah.
- DDDaryl Davis
Vroom. And, um, he's thinking about it and then he changed the subject. But within four, five months, he left the Klan-
- 1:12:18 – 1:22:27
Who joins the Klan—and why: tradition, economic anxiety, and social assimilation
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there a universal factor, like when you talk about how they got involved in it? Is it the neighborhood? Is it people that they knew or family?
- DDDaryl Davis
There are different ... well, let me, let me give you an example of why people join the Klan. There are different reasons. Um, in some cases it's, "My grandfather was in the Klan, my daddy was in the Klan, so I'm in the Klan and my kids are gonna be in the Klan." It's a family tradition, right? Passed down. Um, and when you are dealing with somebody with, with that kinda tie, that, you know, that generational thing, it may take a little longer for them to come out because, uh, it's hard to break family tradition, right? Um, another reason why people join...You take a depressed town, like, like a coal mining town in West Virginia or Scranton, Pennsylvania, something like that, where people who are not racist, uh, they, they're hard workers, they dig coal all their lives. Grandfather dug coal, father dug coal, now you dug coal, dig coal after high school. It's all you know. If I were to hand one of those people a vacuum cleaner and say, "Vacuum this rug," they wouldn't know how to do it. All they know is digging coal. And they're happy. They're making their paycheck, they're feeding their family, paying their rent, whatever. You know, they're not concerned about people's color. They're happy. But then the company, uh, gets greedy and decides, "Hey, you know what? We, we can save money, make a lot more money if we lay off our, our, our, uh, our employees and hire some of these, uh, these, uh, uh, immigrants, whether they're legal or illegal, 'cause they'll work for, for less than half of what we're paying our people," right? And so they lay off these people and hire these people who just came over to the country looking for work, and, and they pay them next to nothing. So now these white people who were never racist, um, are out of a job. Their, the bank is gonna foreclose on their trailer or their house or whatever. Um, they can't put food on their table. The Klan sees these things, and the Klan will come into a depressed town like that and hold a rally and say, "The Blacks have the NAACP. The Jews have the ADL. You know, nobody stands up for the white man but the Klan. Come join us. We'll get your job back. You know, you, you, that, that was your job. Your job's not gone, but you're, but you're gone, and now some, some nigger or some spic's got your job. You know, wh- why is that? Come join us." So these people, like I said, who were never racist, you know, they begin thinking, "Well, you know, uh, they're, they're right. My, my job is still there, and I, and I worked that job for 25 years, you know, and I got laid off for no reason. Uh, and somebody else is doing my job. So what do I have to lose? Give me an application." And they sign up. So they're, like, you know, coerced in, in, into, into this, uh, group. Um, they may be a little easier to come out, you know, talking with them. Then a third reason why people would join, if somebody relocates to a town that is very Klan-oriented, a lot of people from the Klan, you know, live there and stuff, you know, if you wanna do business in that town, you gotta assimilate. You know, you join the local country club, the local chamber of commerce, and the local KKK. So, you know, those, those different reasons why people will, uh, will join.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaryl Davis
And depending, again, you know, depending upon how strong the ties are of, of why they join can determine, um, the, uh, the long- their, their longevity or their, or their, their hold on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is the one that took you the longest to crack?
- DDDaryl Davis
Well, I'll, I'll be honest with you. I never set out to convert anybody. And even though in the media it will say, "A Black musician converts 200 Klansmen," or, "X amount of Klan members," I didn't convert anybody. Uh, I didn't even convert one of them. I will say that I am the impetus for over 200 leaving the Klan. Yeah, I, I know that for a fact. And people have told me, "Yeah, you know, I'm out of it because of you," and things like that. But I did not convert them. They converted themselves. I gave them reason to think about their direction in life, and they thought about it, and thought, "You know, I need a better path, and this is the way to go." Um, because what would happen would be this. It's like, you know, when, when you, when you believe in something, um, some people just believe in it just because it's, it's that person saying it. Like, like, you know, we, we have a current president where no matter what he says, some people are gonna believe and others are, are, are gonna disbelieve. All right? Um, and that, and, you know, and that can go for any president, really. If you're a big fan, no matter what you do, what you say, you have a base that's gonna believe you. So I would tell these people when I saw a fault with what they were saying in their ideology. I said, "Well, let me tell you why I think this is incorrect," and I'd lay out the facts for them. And then they ... Now, they, they might not concede right then and there, but when they go home, they check it out, and it rolls around in their head and they begin thinking, "You know, Daryl does have a point, but he's Black, but he's Black. But he does have a point, but he's Black." So even though they know it's true, they don't wanna believe it because I'm Black. So it's like that cognitive dissonance thing going on. So they, they, they have a str- an internal struggle and they have to make up their own mind, "Do I continue living a lie or do I turn my life around and live the truth?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's also-
- DDDaryl Davis
That's their choice.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're a very articulate guy, and I'm sure a lot of these people are not very educated, so the continued exposure to you is probably confusing to them as well. 'Cause you're so good at forming sentences and speaking calm, and you, you know, the words flow so smoothly out of your mouth-
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you have these wonderful, this wonderful grasp of the English language-
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... they're probably like, "Fuck, I think this guy might be smarter than me." (laughs)
- DDDaryl Davis
(laughs) But, but I-
- JRJoe Rogan
That, that had to help.
Episode duration: 2:39:40
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Transcript of episode oGTQ0Wj6yIg
