![]() ![]() ![]() “If you’re going to be something that you’re not, you have to fit in with the people that you’re interacting with. "Because I was able to experience a part of history not necessarily at the forefront because we weren’t, but I could witness it along with my classmates and we could see what was happening in America and how America was being torn apart because of racism and such.”Īs the book and movie explain, Detective Stallworth responded over the phone to a newspaper ad recruiting new Klan members. “The burnings, the killings, everything that was going on at that time was a reality TV show for us on the 5 and 10 o’clock news and for that I’m very grateful," Stallworth said. El Paso, he said, insulated him from the events taking place in the Deep South. Stallworth ranked his experiences then as positive. ![]() He grew up in El Paso in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Stallworth recently visited New Mexico State University to share his story. He details his time undercover in his 2014 memoir “Black Klansman.” Director Spike Lee adapted his story for the Oscar award-winning “BlacKkKlansman” movie. Retired police officer Ron Stallworth still keeps his red membership card from the Ku Klux Klan in his wallet for show-and for good reason.Īs the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department, Stallworth infiltrated the KKK in the late 1970s. ![]()
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