Pushkin. So I was riding in my car. I'm driving and this klansman was sitting in my passenger seat and we got on the topic of a crime, and he made the mention that black people are born with a gene that makes them violent. And I said, look, I'm as black as anybody you've ever seen. I have never done a drive by or a car jacking. How do you explain that this man did not hesitate one second? He answered me instantly, he said, your gene is latent.
It hasn't come out yet. That's Darryll Davis, a blues musician. And yeah, you heard him right. He's driving in his car with a number of the Ku Klux Klan. You know, I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. And he's sitting next to me with all smug and secure. Huh. You see, you know you have nothing to say. And I thought about it for a moment rather than attack him, you say it's not true. It's not true. I said to him, I said, you know, white people have a gene within
them that make them serial killers. And he said, why would you say that. I said, well, face it, name me three black serial killers. He thought about it. You couldn't name anybody, you couldn't do it. I rattled off Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, David burklewot son of Sam Albert de Salvo, the Boston Strangler. And I said, Son, you are a serial killer. And he said, Darrell, I've never killed anybody. I said, you're Gina's leg and hasn't come out yet.
He said, well, that's stupid, and I said, well, duh, it is stupid. And he got very, very quiet, and I could tell that the gears in his head were spinning super fast, probably burning a hole in there. And then he a moment later he changed the subject. But within five months this guy quit the Ku Klux Klan. Since that car ride thirty years ago, Darryl Davis has gone on to convince dozens of people to leave the
Ku Klux Klan. Convincing someone else to change their mind their view of reality is one of the most elusive, coveted types of change, which is why Darryl's story feels so improbable. So how does he do it? I'm maya shunker as a cognitive scientist. I've always been fascinated by how we change our minds and why we change our minds.
On this show, I'll have intimate conversations with people who have navigated extraordinary change, and hopefully their stories will get us to think differently about change in our own lives. This is a slight change of plans. Darrel didn't set out to change anyone's mind. He was mostly just focused on his music. But one night his life took an unexpected turn when he was playing a show at a
bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge. The Silver Dollar Lounge at the time was an all white lounge, and I say that not meaning that black people could not go in, but meaning that they did not go in by their own choice because they were not welcome there. And when you go somewhere where you're not welcome and alcohol is being served, sometimes it has not made for a good combination,
especially when you're out numbered. So we took a break after the first set, and I was walking across the dance floor to go sit you with the bandmates when somebody approached me from behind and put their arm around my shoulder. No, I don't know anybody in this place, so I'm turning around to see who's touching me? And it was this gentleman maybe fifteen eighteen years older than me, and he's all excited. He says, man, I sure like
your piano playing. This is the first time I ever heard of black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis. And I told him, I said, well, Jerry Lee got it from the same place I did, from black blues and boogie woogie piano players. Oh no, no, no no, no, I never heard no black man play like that. So for you, Jerry Lee invented that style. I said, look, I know Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a good friend of mine. He's told me himself where he had learned how to play.
The guy didn't buy that either, but he was so fascinated with me that he wanted me to come back to table. He's going to buy me a drink, so I don't drink, but I agreed to have a cranberry juice. He bought it, paid the waitress, and then he took his glass and he clinked my glass and cheered me, and then he announces, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down with a black man and had a drink so innocently I asked him why, and
he didn't answer me at first. I asked him again, and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and said tell him, tell him, And the guy looked at me and said, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Well I burst out laughing at him because now I do not believe him. I thought he was putting the joke on me. I'm laughing. He goes inside his pocket, pulls out his wallet, flips through it, and hands me
his clan membership card. I recognized the clan insignia, which is a red circle with a white cross and a red blood drop in the center of the cross, and I'm thinking myself, oh my goodness, you know this is for real. So I stopped laughing. But he was, you know, very friendly and very appreciative of my music and all excited.
He gave me his phone number to you know, to call him whenever I was to return to this bar with this band, and so I'd called him every six weeks and say, hey, man, you know, I'm down there at the Silver Dollar this weekend coming out. You say, it's so nonchalantly like, so I called the guy. It is remarkable that you called this person. And you know, I don't think I'm alone in struggling to understand you know, what was going through through your mind at this moment.
If someone told me that they were in the freaking clan, I would certainly not call them back. In fact, I'd probably just flee the scene. And I think this is for pretty good reasons. Well, you know, I was questioning myself for a second, like what the heck am I doing sitting here with a Klansmen. But the guy was friendly. He disputed the things that I had in mind of the image over typical klansmen, and he wanted to share my music with some of his fellow klansmen clans women.
And they would you get on the danceloor and dancelore on music. You know, they didn't come in robes and Hood's right, you know, they came in you know, regular street clothes. This goes on for a year, an entire year. Darrell would play a gig at this bar, and he would invite clan members to watch him play. This is one of those things that makes Darrell so unusual. I mean, for me, a huge part of what makes someone who
they are is their belief system. And so if we share the same taste in music, that's fine, that's great. But if I then find out they're a flagrant racist, that's going to fully eclipse everything else about them. So how does Darrell look past that? He says, it's not like that. He wasn't looking past it. He wanted to learn from it. See, Darrell had spent his early childhood overseas in a school he describes as a United Nations
for little kids. Race was always in the background, but when he moved back to the States when he was ten, he couldn't escape races, and ever since then he's been
interested in why people hate. I had had an experience at the age of ten where some racist people throw rocks and bottles at me during a parade in which I was the only black participant, and never having had this happened to me before, I was perplexed as to why people were doing this, and when later my parents explained that it was racism, my ten year old brain could not process the idea that someone who had never seen me before, who had never spoken with me, and
knew nothing about me, would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin. You know that just did not compete with me. Well, later, when I realized this was true, there are people like that, I formed a question in my mind, which was, how can you hate me when you don't even know me? And some people would just say, well, Darryl, you know that's just the way it is. Well, no, it's not just the way it is. There has to be a
reason behind it. Well it's always been that way. That was not good enough for me. I wanted to get to the nuclear of it. So Darryll dedicates himself to answering this question. He devours books about race and racism. He reads nearly every book that exists on the Klan, but he's still unsatisfied, so he decides he wants to write his own book about the clan. All the books written on the clan except for mine, have been written
by white authors. You know, white authors obviously have an easier time getting in contact with the clan and sitting down and not fearing any ramifications or whatever, or they might even join the clan undercover. A clansman would have a different perspective sitting there talking to a black person than he would a white person. And how do you feel that perspective would have been different because he's sitting there telling the person that he hates why he hates them.
So now he's having to face me and face those same questions you know that somebody would ask, or even different questions that a white interviewer journalist would not ask because they don't think of him, because they don't feel the things the same things that I feel. As Darrell starts researching for his book, it suddenly dawns on him he already knows someone in the clan, that guy from the Silver Dollar Lounge. So he goes on a mission
to track him down. It takes a while, but eventually he finds the guy's address and I knocked on the door, you know, unannounced, and he opens the door and sees me, goes, Darrell, you know what are you doing here? And look, he looked up and down the hallway to see if I brought anybody with me. So it was more of him that who was intimidated than me. And when he stepped out of his apartment, I stepped in. So he turns around, comes back in. So now we're standing inside his apartment
and he says, you know what's going on? Are you still playing. What's going on? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still playing. But listen, I need to talk to you about the clan. He says, the clan. I said, yeah. He goes, well, I quit. I quit a while back. I said, well, you know, where's all your clan stuff? He says, well, they came and got it. And I said, what do you mean they came and got your robe hood?
You know, don't you own it? And he explained to me, when you join the clan, if you have the money to pay for it, you can purchase your robin hood and it's yours to keep forever. If you cannot afford it at the time, you can still take it home with you, but you put a little extra money in every time you pay your dues until you pay it off, sort like layaway kind of thing. A bizarre financial lead system within the clan. Love it, yes, exactly, equal opportunity
for everyone who's racist, that's right, okay, absolutely so. Anyway, he said that they came and got it, but when they came to get it, he could not find the mask, and he has since found it and he needed to return it. I said, what can I see it? So he goes down the hallway, comes back and hands me the mask, and I said to him, I said, do you know Roger Kelly. He goes, yeah, Roger was my Grand Dragon. I know him. And I said, well, listen, I need you to hook me up with mister Kelly.
I want you to interview him. I'm going to write a book on the clan. Now, let me explain how the hierarchy of the plan works. You understand these terms. We would call a state leader a governor. They call that the Grand Dragon a mayor. That person is known as the exalted Cyclops. Anybody on the great level is Yeah, it's very the self importance that these names true, that's yeah. But see that's also what attracts people because you know,
they get titles, they feel important. Yes, it's a sense of self importance, you know, because they're not getting that from the society in which they live. So, you know, this brotherhood, this gang, if you will, gives him those things. So at the time, Roger Kelly was the Grand Dragon state leader from Maryland. So I said, I'll tell you what you need to return this mask, right, he said yeah. I said, give me Roger Kelly's phone number and his
address and I'll go and return it for you. And he snatched that thing right out of my hand and said, in no way. And so I begged and plead it with him. Well, he finally gave it to me on the condition that I not revealed him mister Kelly where I got it. And he warned me that Darrell, do not go to Roger Kelly's house. Roger Kelly will kill you. And I said, well, that's that's the whole reason why I need to talk to mister Kelly. I know, why would he kill me? What is going on in his
mind when he sees me. I have to understand this. You did realize that you might not get the answer to the question if, in fact the dangerous part happened first, right, true, this is true. But but I but I was thinking, you know that I would I would prevail. I'm the eternal optimist. If you will, Well, I am not the
eternal optimist. And Darrell's decision feels incredibly risky. But anyway, he has a secretary, Mary, call and schedule the interview, and he gives her one important instruction, do not tell him that I'm black, and see if you would consent to sitting down and giving her boss an interview. I figured, you know, he might pick up in my voice that I'm black, and uh. I didn't want him to hang up the phone say am I talking to you, and my whole project would have ended before they ever got started.
Roger Kelly agrees to meet for an interview one evening at a nearby motel. Darrel gets to the motel early with Mary. He's not sure if Roger will even agree to step foot in the room, but if he does, Darrel wants to be hospitable. He asked Mary to fill up the ice bucket and buy some sodas, and then they start arranging the room. There's not much to arrange. There's the ice bucket, a table, two chairs, and Daryl's canvas bag which has his tape recorder and a Bible.
The clan claims to be a Christian organization, and they claim that the Bible preaches are racial separation. Now, in my reading of the Bible, I have never seen anything like that in there. So I want to be able to pull up my Bible and hand it to him and say, here, mister Kelly, please show me chapter and verse where it says blastomed whites must be separate. So I'm all prepared right right on time, right to the minute. Five fifteen knock, knock, knock on the door. In it's
what is known as the Grand Nighthawk. Night Hawk means bodyguard security. He's dressed in military camouflage and he has that clan patch on his chest on one side, on the other side of his chest or the initials cakak and embroidered on his cap and said Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and on his hip. He had a semi automatic handgun in a holster. He comes in, Mister Kelly is walking directly behind him, carrying a briefcase in
a dark blue suit and tie. And the night Hawk turned the corner and saw me and just froze in his trap. So mister Kelly slammed into his back and knocked this guy forward. And now that they both are stumbling around trying to regain their balance, and they're like looking all around the room like somebody's not right here. And I'm just sitting at the table looking at their faces, and I could read their faces like a billboard. Their faces were saying to me, did the desk give us
the wrong room number? Do do we misunderstand something or is this an ambush? So you know, I saw the apprehension, and so I stood up and I displayed both of my palms to show I had nothing in my hands, and I walked forward. I extended my right hand and I said, Hi, mister Kelly, I'm Darryl Davis. We'll be right back with a slight change of plans. You're listening to a slight change of plans. I'm Maya Shunker. So there they are, Roger Kelly, the grand Dragon of the Clan,
face to face with Darrell Davis. Daryl reaches out to shake Roger's hand and Roger shakes his hand back. It seems like the interview is going to happen, but before he can dive in with his first question, Roger asked to see Darryl's ID. So Darrel hands in his driver's license and then he looks at it and he says, oh, you live on such and such a street. And so now I'm wondering, why is this man reading my address? You know, is he gonna come burn across at my
house or you know what? So that had me a little concerned, but I didn't want to let him know that he had rattled me a little bit, and so I said to him, I said, yes, mister Kelly, that is where I live and you live at and I named his house number and his street. It's a pretty good mic drop line. Yeah, because you know, if you come visit me, I'm going to come and visit you. So you know, maybe it's better that we just confine
all of this visiting to this motel room. So anyway, we started with this interview that this is the actual cassette tape from the meeting. Okay, first, what got you interested in in the q clux Klan. I was always interested as a kid, you know, when I was going to school, I was interested. I was fascinated by the Rachel was a rogues across burning and things like hey and did yeah family and the clan. I was like a friend introducer to the clan ran mothers in the
plan year ago. You know, we be and talking and every time my cassette would run out of tape, I'd reach down into my bag to get a fresh cassette, or if mister Kelly tried to make some biblical point, I'd reach down in my bag and put out the Bible. The night hawk was standing to mister Kelly's right at full attention, and every time I reached down, the nighthawk
reached up to his gun. Well after about an hour or so, the bodyguard relaxed, he realized there was no threat in the bag, and I went in and out of the bag. He didn't move a little over an hour into this, mister Kelly and I were just have, you know, casual conversation, and there was a quick, short noise that occurred out of nowhere. It sounded like this, And because it came out of nowhere suddenly, and it was so fast and so short, my ear could not
discern it. So I perceived it to be a threatening noise. I knew that mister Kelly had made this noise. How did I know that? Because I didn't make it, and I feared for my life. I'm not armed, My secretary is not armed. The only person who I know for sure is armed is the nighthawk. I can see his gun on his hip. I don't know if mister Kelly carries one up under his suit jacket or not. All I know is, you know, I don't want to die.
I'm looking right into mister Kelly's eyes I mean, I'm just like inchested away from him, and his eyes were fixated on mine. Mine were fixated on his. Neither one of us said a word. My eyes were saying to him, what did you just do? And I realized his eyes were saying to me, what did you just do? And the nighthawk was looking back and forth between both of us,
like would either one of y'all just do well. Mary was sitting to my left on top of the dresser because there were no more chairs in the room, and she realized what had happened, and she began explaining it to us. When it happened again, the ice in the ice bucket had begun and the cans of soda pop were shifting down the ice. Wow. And then, of course when she explained it and it happened again, you know, we all began laughing. We all began laughing at the
same thing. Everybody in that room became human in that moment. We all feared, We all feared each other. Somebody could have gotten shot over an ice cube, all right, Just think about that for a second. After this interview, Daryl and Roger keep in touch. Daryl is still curious about Roger's perspective and how it might answer the question Daryl's been asking for decades, how can you hate me if you don't even know me? And now the two weren't
actually getting to know each other. Was there a point where you thought, hey, wait a second, I might actually be able to get this Roger Kelly guy to change his mind about this. Here's a thing, Maya. I never set out to change anybody, not the first time, any means, because you know, I never expected anybody to change. All I wanted to know was how can you hate me when you don't even know me? As all I want to know? And I never expected to see these people again.
But when you're sitting there, one on one with somebody, it's hard to hate them as a human being. It's hard to hate them, and it's hard for them to hate you, even though they may try. But was there something specific that he did or that he said where you saw that there was an end? Yeah. I began noticing changes in in his behavior, in his language. He'd been to my house. His bodyguard would come with him initially, and we would have lunch or dinner at my table.
I never got invited to his house. But then when he became Imperial Wizard. He began inviting me to his house, and already he was coming down to my house without without his bodyguard. He trusted me that much. This goes on for over five years. Eventually Roger quits the clan, but he doesn't simply step down and hand it over to someone else. He shuts down his entire chapter, and he cites his friendship with Darryl as being the reason Daryl since inspired over two hundred people to leave white
supremacist groups. And Darryl's story of changing people's minds doesn't end there. He's still doing this kind of work today all over the world. And I wanted to dig in deeper on his approach. I know you don't like saying that you change people's minds, right, You inspire them to change their own minds. So when it comes to inspiring them to change their own minds, did you have to adapt your approach at all when when dealing with different
types of folks? Absolutely, because you know, just like if somebody you know, you're a musician and you play violin, and I don't know if you're right handed or left handed, left handed, hey shout out at Some people are wired left handed. Some people are wired right handed. It doesn't make one person better than the other, It just happens to be how they're wired. Likewise, how we make decisions depends upon how we're wired. Some people are wired to
make decisions based upon their emotions. Others make decisions based upon their logic. So first you determine how does somebody decide something. If they if they make decisions based upon emotion, then there's no way in heck you're going to get to get them to see your point if you bring a logical perspectives. The same thing if you if you're dealing with a scientist or somebody who deals in data and logic and evidence, don't come with an emotional argument.
You know, then I' even going to listen to you. Show them the data, show them the stats, the test results. So you know, you have to go to where they are. And oftentimes we miss that, we don't understand that because we haven't taken the time. I've seen it happen time and time again. So a clansman comes comes into my room to be interviewed or whatever we meet. As soon as he or she sees me, the wall goes right up.
You cannot impart any intelligent information to them when their wall is up, because when their wall is up, their ears are plugged and they're shutting you out. Your mission is to bring the wall down. So I'm sitting there two feet from the guy, and he's telling me that I'm a criminal and that I'm lazy, and that I'm unintelligent,
basing all of this based on my black skin. So when he's done radiating all this vitriol, his wall has come down because I haven't pushed back, and he's curious as to why I haven't pushed back, because he's so accustomed to being pushed back on and so now I've thrown him off his game and he wants to know, well, how do I feel about all this? I could go on the offense and attack him verbally and say, no,
you are the criminal. You are the ones hanging black men from trees and bombing black churches and dragging black men behind pickup trucks, and I would be a one hundred percent correct. But rather than go on the offense, because if I did that, that wall will go right back up and he wouldn't hear a word I'm saying. Instead of going on the offense, I go on the
defense and Maya hear's what happens. He goes home and at the end of the day, like we all do, we reflect on what transpired during the day before we go to bed. He thinks, Man, you know, I had a three hour conversation today with a black guy, you know, and we didn't come to blows. You know, we might have gotten a little loud, but we didn't come to blows. And in most cases with me, most people have changed
their perspectives. So I don't think many people in their everyday lives are going to be interacting with members of the clan, obviously, but many of us, many listeners of this podcast, do encounter racism and prejudice on a daily basis. And you know, when I first heard about your story, I thought, wow, if this man can convince clan members
to leave, than anything is possible. But it feels like maybe things are a little bit more complicated than that, right, Because in order to get someone to be less racist, a necessary step is for them to identify that they are in fact being racist. And clan members are already brazen and celebratory in their racism. But if you were to challenge a mom or a dad who says in private, you know that they prefer if their daughter not marry a black man. They might not be willing to acknowledge
this prejudice within themselves. And so I'm curious to know what advice you'd give to people who are trying to help those around them simply acknowledge their own prejudices by sending down saying, hey, let's let's not have a debate, let's have a conversation. Like for example, just the other day, a very good friend of mine his fellow musician, and we both like music of the fifties, you know, Elvis Presley,
Jeff Berry, all that stuff. And he posted on Facebook, I wish we could return to the mindset of the fifties, and all these people, you know, gave him a thumbs up and likes and all that kind of stuff. So I saw it and I wrote on there, hmm, dot dot dot. I said, maybe we should return bring back the music, maybe bring back some of the cool cars, and definitely some of the low prices, but perhaps not the mindset. And see, and that's a whole different perspective.
You will never hear black people talk about the good old days because we didn't have good old days, you know. And you know I loved the music of the fifties. But what I want to go back to that era? No, because in that era I would have to be drinking from a separate order fountain, riding in the back of the bus, not being served in certain restaurants. I don't
want to go back to that. But see if that didn't even occur to him, Why I did it not occur to him because he has white privilege, and you know, it was just a plain ignorance. So I had to just point it out to him. He wasn't trying to be offensive or anything like that, He just didn't know. How do you think about the difference between labeling behaviors as racists versus people as racist, and how that difference in focus might affect people's ability to change. You put
a label on somebody, they tend to carry it. It damages them. And if they have paid their price that you know, they've given that up. They should not have to wear that label anymore. We need to break them from that. Otherwise, what do they have left? How do they feel whole? You know, we can't do that to people.
During my time at the Obama White House when we were designing reentry guides for people who are leading prison we made sure not to use labels like ex convicts or ex prisoners and instead use forward looking language like community members. And this was basic on the idea that people often act in ways that's strongly align with their social identities, and you know, they can often feel fixed
in those identities. Yes, like, if they've paid the price, they have accepted responsibility and accountability, then why should we label them that way? Label them ask to what they are at the time. Daryl's now working with the State Department.
They send him on trips to Israel, India and other countries to talk about prejudice and bigotry and how to tackle the deep inequities of race, class, and cast He also gives dozens of lectures a year at universities and I'll, you know, at the end of the lecture, I'll do a Q and A. There'll be some students standing off in the distance, not doing anything. It's kind of milling around.
When the crowd dissipates and goes away from the podium, he or she will then approach me and they'll like, look around, make sure nobody's with an ear shot and they'll say, oh, you know, I enjoyed your lecture, mister Davis. You know I was raised that way. My mother is in the clan, or my father's a neo Nazi. You know, this is how how I grew up. But now I'm here at University of whatever and m my my my boyfriend h is Jewish or my girlfriend is black, and
I can't bring I can't bring that person home. My parents will kill me or you know, or they'll disown me. And how do they go home and tell their parents that their parents were wrong? You know, their parents wanted them to go and get an education, but they didn't want them to get that education. So they've got this secret burning on their chest. You know that just has to come out. And I'm one of the perfect persons that,
you know that they can talk to about it. And I'll sit down and talk with them and you know, give them some advice and things like that and try to smooth things out for them. You know, he help them out. Um. You know, I get a lot of those kinds of emails. Guys, you want me to talk to their brother, or some kid wants me to talk to their parents, or some wife wants me to talk to her husband. We need something like a race anonymous kind of thing, And I'm planning on having a museum
one day. In my museum, I'm going to have a component for people to come and talk about, you know, racist spouses or racist parents, or racist siblings or something like that, so there will be an outlet for them and hopefully, hopefully that can be replicated around the country. We spent so much of this interview talking about how you inspire changing others, and I'm wondering how this whole
experience changed you. I I just thought I'd meet these people, get my information, write my book, and be done, never see them again. What what you and I and everybody else has heard as children is this. A tiger does not change his stripes, a leopard does not change his spots, So why would we think that a clansman would change his ideology? You know, people are who they are. But when somebody started changing, and then it happened again and
again and again, I realized I was onto something. So what can what can be learned can also be unlearned. I cannot stop doing this work, so I'm making just as much time between my music and doing this kind of work because I love my country and I want to see it improve. We spend too much time in this country talking about the other person, talking at the other person, and talking past the other person. I prefer to talk with the other person and that has been
the key to my success. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next week for my conversation with comedian and actress Tiffany Hattish Girl. If I hadn't gone through all the stuff that I've been through, I would not be funny at awe Like if you think about it, like everything that I am capable of, that how am I able to access it? Comes from all of the tragedy. A Slight Change of Plans is created an executive produced by
me Maya Schunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound design and mixed engineers Ben Taliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals. Incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow
a slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. So, Daryl, one of the things that really captivated me on a personal level about your story is that you are a musician. I was also a musician in the younger part of my life, and I studied classical violin. Okay, if I have to correct you on something. You said that you were a musician, let me tell you Something's a musician, always a musician. So you're still a musician. Oh I
love that. Thank you. I think my technique would would violate that assumption, but I think in my heart I am a musician. I'll give you that