How A Black Detective Infiltrated The KKK

In 1978, Ron Stallworth was working as a detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department when he came across a classified ad to find out more about the Ku Klux Klan — and answered it. Two weeks later, he got a call on the police department's undercover operations line. It was the local KKK organizer. He asked why Stallworth wanted to join the Klan.

"I said I wanted to join because I was a pure, Aryan, white man who was tired of the abuse of the white race by blacks and other minorities," Stallworth recalls.

But Stallworth — a highly decorated law enforcement veteran — is actually black. In his new memoir, Black Klansman, he tells the story of how he hoodwinked the Ku Klux Klan into thinking he was one of them. (As you might imagine, this conversation includes some racist language.)

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