Black Klansman

The #1 New York Times Bestseller! The extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award winning film BlacKkKlansman, written and directed by Spike Lee, produced by Jordan Peele, and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver. When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. He figures he’ll receive a few brochures in the mail, maybe even a magazine, and learn more about a growing terrorist threat in his community. A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he’d never have to answer, “Would you like to join our cause?” This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Its Grand Wizard, David Duke, has made a name for himself, appearing on talk shows, and major magazine interviews preaching a “kinder” Klan that wants nothing more than to preserve a heritage, and to restore a nation to its former glory. Ron answers the caller’s question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history. Ron recruits his partner Chuck to play the "white" Ron Stallworth, while Stallworth himself conducts all subsequent phone conversations. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotages cross burnings, exposes white supremacists in the military, and even befriends David Duke himself. Black Klansman is an amazing true story that reads like a crime thriller, and a searing portrait of a divided America and the extraordinary heroes who dare to fight back.

Driven by the need to understand those who despise him because of the color of his skin, Daryl Davis sets his sights on meeting Klan members to get to the heart of their hate. With rare courage, Davis exposes his own anger, along with his compassion, in his attempt to unearth the roots of prejudice and foster harmony between the races.

"A haunting tapestry of interwoven stories that inform us not just about our past but about the resentment-bred demons that are all too present in our society today . . . The interconnected strands of race and history give Ball’s entrancing stories a Faulknerian resonance." —Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review A 2020 NPR staff pick | One of The New York Times' thirteen books to watch for in August | One of The Washington Post's ten books to read in August | A Literary Hub best book of the summer| One of Kirkus Reviews' sixteen best books to read in August The life and times of a militant white supremacist, written by one of his offspring, National Book Award–winner Edward Ball Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail. Sifting through family lore about “our Klansman” as well as public and private records, Ball reconstructs the story of his great-great grandfather, Constant Lecorgne. A white French Creole, father of five, and working class ship carpenter, Lecorgne had a career in white terror of notable and bloody completeness: massacres, night riding, masked marches, street rampages—all part of a tireless effort that he and other Klansmen made to restore white power when it was threatened by the emancipation of four million enslaved African Americans. To offer a non-white view of the Ku-klux, Ball seeks out descendants of African Americans who were once victimized by “our Klansman” and his comrades, and shares their stories. For whites, to have a Klansman in the family tree is no rare thing: Demographic estimates suggest that fifty percent of whites in the United States have at least one ancestor who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan at some point in its history. That is, one-half of white Americans could write a Klan family memoir, if they wished. In an era when racist ideology and violence are again loose in the public square, Life of a Klansman offers a personal origin story of white supremacy. Ball’s family memoir traces the vines that have grown from militant roots in the Old South into the bitter fruit of the present, when whiteness is again a cause that can veer into hate and domestic terror.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In October 1978, I was an Intelligence Unit detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department. I was assigned to scan the two daily newspapers for any reports of information concerning any hint of subversive activity that might impact the safety and well-being of Colorado Springs. #2 I answered an ad placed by the KKK, and two weeks later I spoke to Ken O’Dell, the local organizer, who asked why I wanted to join the KKK. I told him that I hated niggers, Jews, Mexicans, spics, and anyone else that did not have pure white Aryan blood in their veins. #3 I picked up the phone and spoke with a man who identified himself as Ken, a member of the KKK, about joining their organization. I was told that membership would cost me ten dollars for the remainder of the year, and thirty dollars for the next year. I was to meet them next Thursday at the Kwik Inn in Colorado Springs.

The Ku Klux Klan came to Canada thanks to some energetic American promoters who saw it as a vehicle for getting rich by selling memberships to white, mostly Protestant Canadians. In Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, the Klan found fertile ground for its message of racism and discrimination targeting African Canadians, Jews and Catholics. While its organizers fought with each other to capture the funds received from enthusiastic members, the Klan was a venue for expressions of race hatred and a cover for targeted acts of harassment and violence against minorities. Historian Allan Bartley traces the role of the Klan in Canadian political life in the turbulent years of the 1920s and 1930s, after which its membership waned. But in the 1970s, as he relates, small extremist right- wing groups emerged in urban Canada, and sought to revive the Klan as a readily identifiable identity for hatred and racism. The Ku Klux Klan in Canada tells the little-known story of how Canadians adopted the image and ideology of the Klan to express the racism that has played so large a role in Canadian society for the past hundred years — right up to the present.

Jim Ruiz, a Louisiana police veteran and historian, provides an account of the brutal murder of these two white men in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana. The Black Hood of the Ku Klux Klan also delves into the investigation that followed the murders and demonstrated the iron grip of the Ku Klux Klan in the South during the early twentieth century.

The end of the Civil War left a fearful and resentful South struggling to understand the changes the war had wrought. Those seeking a focus for their anger quickly turned on recently emancipated blacks. Chief among them was the newly formed Ku Klux Klan. Some of those targeted by the Klan's murderous activities turned to armed resistance and retaliation as their only resort. This volume examines the actions of the Ku Klux Klan between the years of 1865 and 1899: how the organization sponsored violence against former slaves, and how that violence eventually led to the formation of armed defensive groups. The author considers both the history and the sociology behind these events. Appendices provide excerpts from a variety of primary sources including contemporary newspaper articles, correspondence and personal diaries.

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, the powerful story of how a prominent white supremacist changed his heart and mind. This is a book to help us understand the American moment and to help us better understand one another. “The story of Derek Black is the human being at his gutsy, self-reflecting, revolutionary best, told by one of America’s best storytellers at his very best. Rising Out of Hatred proclaims if the successor to the white nationalist movement can forsake his ideological upbringing, can rebirth himself in antiracism, then we can too no matter the personal cost. This book is an inspiration.” —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Derek Black grew up at the epicenter of white nationalism. His father founded Stormfront, the largest racist community on the Internet. His godfather, David Duke, was a KKK Grand Wizard. By the time Derek turned nineteen, he had become an elected politician with his own daily radio show—already regarded as the "the leading light" of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. "We can infiltrate," Derek once told a crowd of white nationalists. "We can take the country back." Then he went to college. At New College of Florida, he continued to broadcast his radio show in secret each morning, living a double life until a classmate uncovered his identity and sent an email to the entire school. "Derek Black ... white supremacist, radio host ... New College student???" The ensuing uproar overtook one of the most liberal colleges in the country. Some students protested Derek's presence on campus, forcing him to reconcile for the first time with the ugliness of his beliefs. Other students found the courage to reach out to him, including an Orthodox Jew who invited Derek to attend weekly Shabbat dinners. It was because of those dinners—and the wide-ranging relationships formed at that table—that Derek started to question the science, history, and prejudices behind his worldview. As white nationalism infiltrated the political mainstream, Derek decided to confront the damage he had done. Rising Out of Hatred tells the story of how white-supremacist ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost. With great empathy and narrative verve, Eli Saslow asks what Derek Black's story can tell us about America's increasingly divided nature.