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March 1 - March 3, 2020
If one black man, aided by a bevy of good, decent, dedicated, open-, and liberal-minded whites and Jews can succeed in prevailing over a group of white racists by making them look like the ignorant fools they truly are, then imagine what a nation of like-minded individuals can accomplish.
It’s surprising what some people will put in the paper: prostitution, obvious money schemes, that sort of thing mostly, but every once in a while there’s something that really stands out. As I looked over the classified ads, one in particular caught my eye. It read: Ku Klux Klan For Information Contact P.O. Box 4771 Security, Colorado 80230 Now there was something unusual.
I was seeking a reply, expecting it would be in the form of literature such as a pamphlet or brochure of some kind. All in all I did not believe my efforts would have any traction beyond a few mundane auto-mailed responses.
Why do I want to join the Klan? A question I truly thought I never would have been asked, and I felt like saying, “Well, I want to get as much information as possible from you, Ken, so I can destroy the Klan and everything it stands for.” But I didn’t say that. Instead I took a deep breath and thought about what someone wanting to join the Klan would actually say.
By saying “nigger” he’d let me know he thought he was inherently better than me. That word was a way of claiming some false power. That is the language of hate, and now, having to pretend to be a white supremacist, I knew to use that language in reverse.
They were seeking monetary donations through the P.O. box, and The Organization, as he referred to it, not the Klan, maintained a bank account under the name of “White People, Org” at a bank in Security.
“Well the thing about Jackie is that he was successful because he chose not to fight back. He confronted racism with silence. Think you can do that?”
Yeeeeah not really.
When I was growing up in that time period as a black person, El Paso was a very liberal southern city. We did not experience the volume of rhetoric or violence that was occurring in the Deep South against the civil rights movement. What we had was only what we saw in the evening TV news coverage. In that respect, the civil rights movement for me was not something in my backyard. It was a TV show.
Could I, they asked, set an example that a black man was just as capable of wearing the uniform of the Colorado Springs Police Department as a white man, and that a man of color deserved to walk among them as an equal? My answers to their questions were that yes, I could do all that the job asked of me, and would be honored to do it at the same time.
I was raised by my mother to do just about the opposite of what the CSPD was asking of me. My mother told me that if anyone called me a nigger I had better “knock them in the mouth” and teach them to call us the proper way. As a child I had gotten in three fights with other children who had called me a nigger.
His response shocked me because he said he could not relate to my choice in Ms. Falana as “beautiful” because he did not know what constituted beauty in a “colored” woman. After all these many years, I distinctly remember John’s next statement to me: “I don’t know how you people define beauty in a woman.”
I loved the interaction with the public (although maybe they didn’t always love interacting with me as I wrote parking tickets). I even loved filing paperwork and fetching records for the other detectives. It was an environment I had never experienced before in that I was a visible representation of the city, and I had to learn the art of interacting with people from all walks of life. People skills. It’s one thing for a teenager to work in a fast-food restaurant, but another to have responsibilities that can affect people’s lives. It made me grow up real quick.
Ralph’s early display of appearance and conformity to the “norm” of CSPD expectations was to set the tone for the career paths he and I were to follow. What started out as a friendship between us because of our mutual endeavors on the road to being police cadets turned sour within a year as he, being six months older, graduated into the ranks of the uniformed Patrol Division sooner and quickly developed an attitude that he was better than I was.
As a patrolman Ralph shot and killed a teenaged boy, a known burglar, in broad daylight. Ralph said the boy was armed and pulled a gun on him while fleeing the scene of one of his burglaries. The problem with Ralph’s story was that the individual did not have a weapon on him. It was only through the masterly verbal sleight of hand on the part of the El Paso County district attorney that Ralph survived the shooting investigation through the grand jury. He retained his position as a police officer; however, his credibility among his peers suffered significantly after the incident.
All of the people gathered for Carmichael’s speech had an inherent dislike for the police, and it was only exacerbated when a black officer was concerned. To them I was not a “black” man, but rather a police officer who happened to be black.
Where black brothers like Stokely were intent on bringing down the white man—a “devil” in their eyes—and his racist-centered society and dominant government structure, brothers like me were caught in a netherworld common to black officers, a “phantom-like” void in which we were too black for the white community we served as well as some of our fellow officers, and too “blue,” for the color of the uniform we wore, for our fellow “soul brothers” steeped in the cause of civil rights/social revolution beneficial for the black community.
Rather they saw they shared with black police officers the commonality of a shared life experience built on a background of biased degradation based on skin pigmentation and other social factors.
Now, I was proud of being both black and a cop. I was proud of my blackness without being angry. I was in awe of Stokely because he was a figure of the civil rights movement. People like him (MLK, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Recy Taylor, John Lewis, and so forth) made life better for people like me. But now here I was being thrust into this unique situation, and I had no qualms because I could differentiate being a cop who was black and a black man in white America.
I, however, while clapping, was busy laughing at my female companion joining in with the crowd in her thick German accent yelling “Black Power” with a raised white fist.
Stokely was dynamic, mesmerizing. The alternating effect of his pitch and tone could raise the audience into a fevered frenzy or bring them down, as if they were listening to a soothing Sunday morning sermon.
As we shook hands, I asked him if he truly believed an armed conflict between the black and white races was inevitable. He squeezed my hand tighter and pulled my face closer to his, eyes quickly darted around the room as he whispered, “Brother, arm yourself and get ready because the revolution is coming and we’re gonna have to kill whitey. Trust me, it is coming.”
First, I broke the most basic rule of all and that was going into a case without a plan of operation. Second, I used my real name instead of my undercover identity—a cardinal sin. Third, having used my real name, I gave the undercover address and phone number without anticipating the possibility that anything would come of the effort.
Fortunately, the people I was dealing with were not, to use an old adage, “the brightest bulbs in the socket,” and my mistakes did not jeopardize the outcome of the investigation.
Anytime during the course of the investigation we could have brought it to an end by arresting several Klansmen for misdemeanor offenses; however, this was not my objective. Had these individuals strayed into the realm of felony offenses we most definitely would have taken them down and brought an end to the investigation. Until that bridge was crossed, I was determined to follow the intelligence trail as far as it would take me and learn as much as possible about the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Not only do I not have the manpower for this, but the second this Ken hears one of our white officers speaking to him, he’ll know he’s been speaking to a black man on the phone.” “What does a black man talk like?” I asked. “Well, you know…” Arthur trailed off. “No, I don’t know. Explain it to me.” I was met with dead silence.
Arthur, the narcotics lieutenant, failed to come to grips with the reality that time had passed him by. During that period the CSPD, like many police departments in the country, began requiring a more educated status for advancement within its rank structure. Traditional issues, such as being more deserving (am I better qualified based on case productivity and seniority) were no longer the paradigm on which a promotional consideration was based.
“Have you been reading the publicity the Klan has been receiving in all the papers?” Ken asked Chuck. Chuck replied yes, though he admitted he probably had missed some of the articles on occasion. Ken went on to explain that he and other Klansmen had been placing these articles, calling journalists.
Ken stated that Butch’s wife had recently been stabbed by “niggers” and the woman who lived on his street was a suspect in the stabbing. He said “someone” had burned a cross on this woman’s lawn to send her a message but had done a poor job of it. Later, I checked all police and sheriff’s department report databases on this alleged incident and could find no indication that it, in fact, had occurred. If it had, then the victim did not report it to the police … a highly unlikely prospect.
Butch explained that each cross would be seventeen feet high by eight feet wide and assembled days in advance prior to the burning. Several days before the burning, the members would go to the predetermined locations and dig the holes for the placement of the crosses and then cover them up with rocks until ready for use. On the night of the burning the members would go to each selected area, remove the rocks, and place the crosses in their respective holes. After dousing the crosses with a flammable solution, a fuse consisting of a lit cigarette placed on a pack of matches was timed to ignite
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When asked what the procedure was for introducing another prospective member into The Organization, Ken replied, “The first thing to consider was if there was any Jew” in the prospective member’s background. If not then a personal interview—much like this—would be arranged. I smiled at Jimmy next to me in the surveillance car as we listened. Chuck was thinking two steps ahead, already wondering how we could get another man in there with him.
To Arthur’s credit, I did not feel his animosity toward me had anything to do with my race, but instead had everything to do with my boldness.
It’s important for me to explain just who David Duke was and is, a man whose name to this day is synonymous with hate and a lightning rod in the current political and media landscape. A man who would soon consider me a “friend.”
His appearance was that of an all-American boy every mother would want as a prom date for her daughter. He was always well groomed, well mannered (at least in public), articulate, and highly educated, with a master’s degree. His Dr. Jekyll appearance belied a Mr. Hyde personality and perspective on racial matters common to the core of America’s social and political climate. Publicly he would not talk about hate but about heritage and history. He spawned a new racism for the right-wing masses, one that melded the antipathy to blacks and other minorities to general dissatisfaction with
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Finally, in a 1999 special election to replace U.S. Representative Bob Livingston, Duke ran unsuccessfully as a Republican against David Vitter.
Diaper Dave was a better choice.
Had Duke not been on the ticket in these races much, if not all, of his topical agenda would probably never have been an issue for debate. The fact that he won an election as a Republican after failing twice as a Democratic candidate says a lot about the mind-set of the electorate.
As the expected recorded voice droned on, preaching hate, a voice broke in and said, “Hello.” “Hello?” I asked. “Who is this?” “This is David Duke, the actual voice of the Klan.” He chuckled at this. I have to say, I was quite surprised. “I’m Ron Stallworth. I’m one of the new chapter members in Colorado Springs.” “Pleased to meet you.” We exchanged pleasantries, and I let him know how much I admired his leadership and fearlessness. He responded well to being sucked up to.
We spoke for about fifteen minutes, and then he said he had a KKK rally to attend in Palm Harbor that he needed to prepare for. He ended our exchange by stating he hoped to meet me when he was in town. When I got off the phone I smiled to myself. This was going better than I ever could have planned.
The first public counterprotest against the emerging KKK presence in Colorado Springs was reported to me the same day as the “Voice of the Klan” exchange with David Duke. The public outcry over the Klan presence came to my office in the form of an intelligence memo stating that blacks and Latinos were planning to commit arson against any cars belonging to KKK members, and this information was determined to be credible.
Uniformed Colorado Springs Police Department officers responded to a disturbance at the Southgate Shopping Center located on the south end of the city limits. They encountered eight demonstrators peacefully marching in front of stores, carrying placards with anti-KKK slogans printed in bold black letters, and handing out leaflets. One of the demonstrators I later learned was a professor at Colorado College, a prestigious local four-year private school.
Although it was clear that the leftist factions organizing against the Klan were poorly organized, and for the most part nonviolent, I could feel the waters begin to boil in Colorado Springs, and fear and anger build.
In each instance he had been condemned publicly, rebuffed by public officials for his racial viewpoint, yet nothing could be found to officially excoriate him or his extracurricular actions, and no punishment was ever forthcoming. His stated allegiance to the Klan was deemed to be within his First Amendment rights, and as long as it did not interfere with the performance of his official duties as a Lakewood firefighter, no action could be taken against him by city officials. In fact, he apparently had an exemplary record as a firefighter including, according to one report, giving
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Ken and Fred were obsessed with the idea of us being in full robed force, and I think it’s important to take a look at the origin of these robes, which instantly conjure feelings of terror and hate in the minds of any decent American, and where they came from.
The sixty-person attendance was notable because the meeting was not publicized but rather the result of word-of-mouth notification over a short time.
Doug called for a violent confrontation with the Klan: “When racist vermin like the Klan and Nazis wriggle out from under a rock, we believe in smashing the rock right back down on them.”
Got to say I am pro Doug here.
The anti-Klan meetings were attended primarily by college students, a few professionals, college instructors, and concerned citizens. They were housewives and people from all walks of life concerned about the Klan having a viable presence in the city.
As a result, the Klan would need a new local organizer. Ken told Chuck that he had been impressed with me throughout our various talks and thought I (Chuck) “would make a great local organizer.” Of course both Chuck and I were caught completely off guard by this very unique development. In my phone conversations with Ken there had never been any indication that he was even remotely thinking about moving in this direction.
The greatest impediment to this whole possibility was the issue of “entrapment,” and Chuck, like the excellent undercover investigator he was, immediately grasped this and put it in perspective in his follow-up response.
As undercover officers we were always thinking of how to avoid entrapment, which is willfully deceiving a target into wrongdoing. So, for example, we couldn’t organize a cross burning and then arrest the Klan participants for conspiring to terrorize Colorado Springs. So a leadership position obviously presented not only more challenges, but also tremendous possible rewards.
It would have been quite easy for me (or Chuck) to manipulate conversations that would have guaranteed they would commit criminal acts, thus allowing for their arrest and prosecution. Instead, we steered (or tried to) such conversations away from acts of conflict, which proved beneficial to our objective of intelligence gathering and still provided for the public safety and welfare.
Ken had proven himself to be less than believable in our interactions. He was constantly inventing facts to make himself seem more important than he was, pulling member numbers out of thin air and bragging about plans he had no way of seeing to fruition.
