February 7, 2019 • 45 mins
In 2018, director Spike Lee brought the story of Ron Stallworth to the big screen to great effect. Today, Josh and Chuck discuss the true story behind the Oscar nominated film.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the
three of us together. It's movie crush. I mean, stuffy
(00:22):
should have This does have some stink on it, doesn't
it some movie stink? I know your game is cool. Uh.
I didn't even ask you have you seen Black Klansman.
I I was like, I can't. I can't do this
episode without having seen it. So I watched it last night.
Oh nice? Yeah good? Huh Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.
(00:43):
I like uh. I like his choice at the end,
like just completely pull a somersault on the viewer. Oh
sure with that last bit. Yeah, like spoiler alert pretty yeah,
for sure. We should probably say that out of the gate.
If you haven't seen this yet and you don't want
it to be spoiled, don't listen this episode first. But um, yeah,
(01:03):
I guess now that we said that, we can speak freely, right, yes, So,
um the if if the entire movie was basically to
disarm you up to the end, then I think it's
one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. In my life.
And even if it wasn't, that wasn't the entire point
of the movie. It was still it was still great.
(01:24):
And how he pulled it out at the end, I think, yeah,
well this was I don't know if you remember, but
this is the movie I saw in Perth, Australia that
happens at the end, that big, you know, sort of
gut punch of realism at the end. And I stood
up and I was like, hmm, like, I wonder what
they they're thinking here in Perth. They're probably thinking what
(01:47):
just happened? What's wrong with America? Yeah, and I'm going
I might good to see you. I'm not American, I'm Canadian.
Can't you tail bloke? Oh goodness? Uh yeah it was.
It was one of those things where I was like,
I'm kind of slightly embarrassed right now. Like that. I
(02:09):
enjoyed the movie, though I thought to see Spike Lee,
who am just He's one of my favorite filmmakers in
his sixties, still just bringing the juice like this. I
loved it. Yeah. I also loved that it was controversial
too um and that like some people criticized Spike Lee
for like not going far enough for maybe kind of
um glossing over some of the ugly aspects of the story. Yeah,
(02:32):
well you want to get to that at the end, maybe, Yeah, yeah,
for sure, but we'll we'll give it a pre mentioned
shout out, which is what we just did. Right, So
we are talking about the uh, the true story of
the film Black Klansman, Spike Lea's movie that won the
Grand Prize at the con Film Festival. It's nominated for
(02:54):
Academy Awards. Yeah, three Oscars, I believe for including Best Picture, Yeah,
I think Picture Director, and Supporting Actor for who I
would guess Adam Driver. I didn't see. Really. Yeah. I
was surprised because Denzel's son did a wonderful job as well.
He loves he loves that being known as that, right.
(03:16):
I can't remember his first name, but you know, Denzel's son.
He he was um like, there were several times when
he was talking and I was like, oh, you're definitely
Denzel Washington's son man, just the way he talked, the
the sound of his voice. But also is acting too,
He's a good actor. Yeah, so alright, Best Picture, Best
Supporting Actor for Adam Driver, Best Director, and Best Original
(03:39):
Music Score. Oh nice, but yeah, he is. I didn't
know he was Denzel's son until after the movie. Yeah,
I could see that. And he was a football player,
do you know that? I didn't. Who do you play for?
He played for Morehouse here in Atlanta. He was a
running back and then played an NFL in the practice
squad for the RAM and then eventually played a few
(04:02):
years in NFL Europe and the UFL until he hung
up his cleats six years ago. Oh that's cool. Yeah,
playing football in Europe has got to be a surreal experience. Yeah,
because it's a soccer ball and everyone's like, what are
you doing? This is all wrong? All right? So should
we way back in to the nineteen seventies, the groovy
(04:24):
seventies of Denver, Colorado. First, first we should say his
name is John David Washington. You were kidding Denzel's son? Yes,
So yeah, let's get in the way back machine and see. Uh,
let go inspect their terrible, low quality pot. So Ron
(04:46):
Stalworth is the true to life character's name. Who There
was a football player growing when we were growing up
named John Stalworth. So I'm always wanting to say John Stalworth,
this is not him. This is a cop named Ron Stalworth,
that's right, and he had a few designations that are
pretty important. He was the first African American police officer
to work for the Colorado Springs Police Department, which he
(05:08):
joined as a cadet at the age of nineteen in
seventy two, and then a couple of years later on
his twenty one birthday, on his twenty first birthday, that's
what I saw at June eighteenth. I believe Nice was
sworn in as a full on officer of the law,
right And I'm not sure if like they just swear
you in on your twenty one birthday or if it
just so happened that the ceremony was on his twenty
(05:31):
first birthday, But regardless, it was a big deal. He's
the first African American cop and then later on detective
for Colorado Springs. So that's that's a big deal, especially
starting out at age twenty one two. That takes a
lot of cojones as they call it in Colorado. I
think they call those rocky Mountain oysters. That's right, that
is what they call him. So he worked undercover for
(05:54):
about thirty years um long great careers and undercover detective,
but it was this case which only came out about
four years ago when he wrote a book about it
about his career. Um, when he went under cover as
a well as a klansman. But it's a little more
complicated than that. It is. It was a very complicated operation,
(06:19):
right yeah. And and this wasn't something that like um,
I mean he even says in this NPR interview that
he didn't. It was just a job at that particular
point in time. And when that particular job ended, that
is the undercover stint, which was about about eight or
nine months, I moved on to something else and it
just happened by circumstance. So he didn't come in there
(06:41):
with a bone to pick with the clan, aside from
probably every bone to pick that he had with the clan,
right just as a black man in America. Oh yeah,
And I knew it would probably help to give a
little background on the clan at the time, because you know,
the clan was very well known for being really big
and really violent at over. Three waves is basically how
(07:01):
the clan history is divided. Like the first wave was
when they were um, they were founded in the wake
of the Civil War. UM. Then they had the second
wave came around the nineteen teens, like nineteen fifty fifteen,
I mean, um, that that era, and then they had
another big resurgence during the Civil rights are in the
(07:24):
fifties and sixties. But you know, in between these waves
and after that third wave, it's not like the clan
just went away. They just they kept on going. Their
profile was lower and maybe there um the public violence
or terrorism that they were engaging in wasn't quite as pronounced,
but they were still there. And in Colorado in particular,
(07:46):
they had a really long history with the clan where
basically the city of Denver was in the under the
control of the clan back in the twenties, just you know,
fifty years before um Ron Stalworth's started working there. Yeah
he was. He got when he when he got hired there,
he got access to files like secret FBI files, and
(08:07):
he got to go in and dig in and look
at the history of the clan in Colorado, and boy,
like you ain't kidding, they were in the House of Representatives.
There were senators. Both senators were Clans members. The mayor
Benjamin Stapleton, who the airport was named after, until yeah,
(08:27):
his great grandson ran for governor um on the GOP
ticket this past election and lost to who is Colorado's
first ever openly gay Jewish governor. Wow, Colorado is a
weird state. It is an odd state for different ideologies
all packed in together. It's very purple in all sorts
(08:50):
of ways. Yeah, so, uh, Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a
clan member. The governor Clarence Morley was a clan member.
UM a chief of police, which is I mean, you
don't want anyone in these positions to be clan members,
but I imagine the chief of police is one of
the more problematic areas a person in that kind of control,
(09:11):
particularly that one too. He was basically he was picked
by the clan, the Colorado Clan um and basically foisted
on Benjamin Stapleton. Who who Who was even like, Wow,
this guy's even too much for my tastes, and UM
eventually fired him. But like the clan picked the chief
(09:32):
of police of Denver, Colorado back in the twenties. Oh yeah,
And they tried to recall Stapleton at one point. It
didn't work, and when that effort failed, the clan burned
across on the top of Table Mountain as a celebration,
a show of public celebration. Right, So the clan has
deep roots in the old story in Colorado, or at
(09:52):
least they used to, and they were still very much
around when um uh, when Ron Stalworth started as his stegationer,
started as the um, the first black detective in Colorado Springs, right,
that's right. And so he started out, I guess is
kind of playing clothes and was assigned um undercover work
(10:15):
pretty quickly, just just by his um, just by being
the only African American UH officer in the police force.
Because Stokely Carmichael came to town once, that's right, And
this is in the film. We're gonna talk about a
few differences between the movie and and the real story.
But he did, in fact to go to a speech
(10:37):
and a rally by famous black panther Stokely Carmichael, and
he was, you know, fully kidded out in his bell
bottoms and his wearing a wire he picked his afro out,
and he in fact did make a point to meet him,
just like he did in the film. And Carmichael did
apparently say arm yourself and get ready because the revolution
(10:59):
has come ing. And I imagine Stalworth had some mixed
feelings about that assignment. Yeah, I guess so. Um, it's
kind of like, I don't really have any idea of
what he personally was like because the movie mixed things
up so much and like added layers that weren't necessarily there.
So I have no idea what what that experience would
(11:21):
have been like for him, you know. Yeah. One thing
we do know is not true is the character in
the film of Patrese, whom he meets at that rally,
young woman that he falls in love with. She was
made up for the movie. Spike Lee wanted a a
love interest basically and to represent sort of the the
female black power movement as a whole. So she was
(11:43):
completely made up. But she was terrific in the film. Yeah. Yeah,
Laura Harry Or she's in the New Spider Man movies too,
She's awesome, cool, the New Spider Verse movie No no, no,
that's animated. Okay, well, she could have been a voice actor,
I guess right. Yeah. Now she's in then the One,
the New Ones with the New the New Kid, okay,
the New Spidy Kid, the Current spider Man, Current Spider Man,
(12:06):
which is great. Those are good movies. I haven't seen
any of them. You're not super into that stuff. The
ore you Well, I saw the Infinity War when he
was in that. I think, Yeah, he's a bit of
a smart alec. Frankly, he is um so okay. He
he does his research on the deep roots of the
clan in Colorado, he goes undercover and then I don't
(12:30):
think he was even assigned this thing. I think he
kind of came up with it on his own by chance,
almost uh, in October night. He was twenty five at
this point, and he was looking through the local paper.
Well that was part of his assignment, to gather intelligence
by reading the paper. Well, right, but I don't think
I think this was his idea to go undercover like this.
(12:51):
That's the impression I have to. He seemed like a
self starter, uh in a lot of ways. So he
found this ad um classified ad in the paper for
the clan, UH said get in touch of you aren't
further information. He sent a letter posing as a white
racist to a po box, just thinking that he would
(13:12):
just get back some pamphlets or something. So he signed
his real name, which is uh. He didn't really think
that went through. No, he didn't, and he didn't he
never really fully explained it aside from the best explanation
I saw is that he didn't think anything was going
to come of it. He thought he'd get, like you said,
a couple of pamphlets and that would be that. UM.
(13:33):
And he just wasn't planning to create like a large
investigation out of making contact through this this ad. And
and again we should probably state this. It was an
ad in the paper for the client to get in
touch with the clan, to get more info about the
clan and maybe you might want to join who knows? Um. So,
(13:54):
so he he makes contact with him by sending off
a letter. And if you ask me if if if
Spike Lee were directing this episode, he would put an
ad break right here. That was good. Who are we
to disagree? All right, we'll be right back, okay. So,
(14:35):
like we said, ron Stalworth is thumbing through the newspaper.
He mails off a letter to get more info about
the clan, and um he uses his real name, and
and like like you said, Chuck, he was expecting like
a pamphlet or something in return, like so you want
to be a clan member or something like that. Um. Instead,
(14:56):
about two weeks later he got a call from the number.
So he used everything as far as the undercover operation
would go. Um, he used all of his undercover info
except for his name. So he got a call on
his undercover phone line from a guy named Ken O'Dell
And he was pretty surprised to get this call because
again he was expecting a pamphlet and instead he had
(15:18):
a real life, living, breathing Ku Klux Klansman on the
other end of the line saying Hey, I got your
letter about hating black people and other minorities. Let's talk. Yeah,
he was like, why are you interested, and Stalworth immediately
just kind of goes into character. Uh, and I guess
(15:38):
that's what you You know, when you're undercover, you you
got to be part improv actor, right to be able
to pull that off. Well. He also he said he
drew from his own personal experiences because he grew up
in El Paso and encountered a lot of racism there
and I'm sure on the force in Colorado Springs too,
so he drew from his own experience as well. Yeah,
(15:59):
so he basically right out of the gate says, well,
you know, uh, my sister's dating a black man, and
every time he puts his hands on her, on her
pure white body. I cringe, and I want to do
something about it. And Ken O'Dell says, he sounds like
a great guy. Why once you come on down and
(16:19):
let's meet, because you are just the kind of uh
kind of dude we're looking for. You sound like real
clan material. Yeah. I thought about maybe doing an episode
on the clan. I thought about the two and then
I'm like, do you want to give him a platform? Yeah?
But then I thought, or you know, you could just
talk about it and how stupid they are? All right?
(16:39):
Like it when I was a kid. I mean, of course,
being in Georgia, that stuff was around. I never like
saw it firsthand, obviously, but you heard things even like
growing up in the seventies in Georgia, and I was
always so scared of the whole thing because of the
outfits and everything and the fire. Uh. And I was
a good little Baptist boy, so there was a lot
of fear. But then I got a little older and
(17:01):
I was like, they're just dumb rednecks wearing sheets, right,
sort of demystified it. This is the moment you become
an adult. Yeah, But I mean, of course, then I
would later learn that they did real horrific things and
took lives and you know, or a terrorist organization. Right.
But I think what you're saying is they made themselves
(17:22):
up to be Boogeyman exactly, and they definitely can be
that way, especially in the young mind or something like that.
But yeah, um so, so back to the story. Ron
Stalworth is on the phone with this guy named Ken
O'Dell who wants to meet him to see if he'd
like to join the clan. And this is a big
problem because I think, as we mentioned a couple of times,
(17:43):
ron Stalworth was African American. He's like, oh boy, what
do I do here? Right? So he actually recruited a
fellow detective who he in his book calls Chuck. That's
all he's ever publicly referred to the guy as his Chuck.
Wait was it you, Chuck? It was not me that
that gentleman is I guess either still undercover or just
(18:05):
never wanted his identity out there, right, So he yeah,
he may still live in Colorado Springs. Who knows, maybe
he's on a case right now for all I know.
But so this Chuck guy, uh, he's he was recruited
by Ron Stalwarts, who play Ron Stalworth to the clan.
Because Chuck was white, he was already an undercover narcotics agent,
(18:25):
and apparently he was friendly enough with Ron Stalwarts to say, yes,
I will, I will join this investigation, buddy, let's do it. Yeah.
And here's the thing, though, he was, uh, this wasn't
his like primary case. So Chuck is undercover on a
lot of different assignments, so he's not around as much
as Stalworth needs him. So, like in the movie, most
(18:47):
of this stuff is done over the phone. Like, he
spends a lot of time in this investigation on the
phone speaking to these klansmen who think that he's a
white man, and when they needed to meet, he would
send Chuck in who uh And we'll get to the
voice part in a minute. Because that's when I was
watching the movie. I was like, didn't know that these
(19:09):
dummies not realize that they don't sound anything alike, right,
you know, because they've been talking to him on the
phone at length. Um. But they had their they had
their first meeting. Um, they got together and I believe
they met. Um they met somewhere at first and then
went to a bar after like as the second part
of that meeting. Yeah, they met at a convenie. So
(19:30):
the movie is supposedly portrays this realistically, they they this
Chuck guy, who is portraying ron Stalworth through the clan
um met They met at a convenience store and he
was said he was told to get in the car
and then they drove to a second location, which, man,
that's scary stuff. And also he's also wearing a wire
at the time, Like that's something that that the movie
(19:51):
kind of gets across, but especially like articles about the
story don't necessarily dive into this. Chuck cat was like
putting himself out there as every undercover detective does, right. So,
I mean, ron Stalworth is conducting this investigation, he's the
mastermind of He's leading this whole thing. But this poor
Chuck I has to go hang out with these you know,
(20:12):
violent clans members or clan members on you know what,
like fairly frequently from what I understand. So hats off
to him. Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean it was it
was definitely like it required both of their best efforts
to get away with this for that long. It was
quite the ruse. So Chuck meets with them eventually earns
their trust along with the phone work of Stalworth, and
(20:35):
then he actually gets um successfully admitted about two months
later and got his little I guess you get a
little membership card. He still has it, he does. He
did not throw it away like in the movie. He
hasn't framed in fact, and on the back of the
card where six codes of conduct, one of which said,
(20:56):
UM never discussed any clan affairs with any plain clothes
officer on a state, local, or national level. So there
is a lot of comedy in the movie if you
haven't seen it, Um, I mean, it's it's a serious
thing that they're doing, but there are a lot of
laughs as well, a lot of laughs and a lot
of like movie formula steps that Spike Lee purposefully follows,
(21:18):
you know, very faithfully too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um
there's a big point there that we left out the
Chuck so to get that membership card supposedly, again, as
they say in Colorado, the oysters on this guy his
he had so he met so the fake Um, fake
Ron Stallworth Chuck met with the clan impressed them enough.
(21:38):
Between Ron's the real Ron Stalwarts phone calls and Chuck's
whatever Chuck was saying in in person. All this combined
made the Colorado Springs Clan members say, okay, we like you,
we want you to be a member. Fill out this
application and we'll send it off to them to the
national director of of Again the clan al we should say.
(21:59):
I don't know if we've ever said that. The clan
calls itself the organization rather than the clan. So they
and and the guy who ran the thing, I don't
know if he still runs it or not, but he
definitely did at this time during this investigation is a
guy named David Duke, who if you grew up in
the eighties or I think even the nineties, you were
probably pretty familiar with David Duke. I believe he ran
(22:21):
for president once. Didn't he? I don't know. I mean
he was, he was. Wasn't he the governor of Louisiana.
I don't. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he ran
for that. But he was the grand wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan, and he was trying to make it
a more political organization. Let's let's have a terrorist organization
and more of a political organization under his guidance, but
(22:41):
it was still the Ku Klux Klan Like there was
still plenty of times when he was wearing robes and
stuff he just never did in public. So during this
time he was he was the national director, the Grand
Wizard of the clan. And when ron Stalworth didn't get
his application pushed through fast enough, he picked up the phone,
had called the national headquarters and ended up talking with
(23:04):
David Duke and saying like, Hey, my application is taking
a while. Is there anything you can do about it?
And this kicked off like a what what um ron
Stalworth would later characterize in a weird way as a
friendship between him, a black undercover detective in Colorado, and
David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah.
(23:25):
And by the way, I don't want to get uh
angry emails from David Duke's reporters. Uh. He was a
Republican UM Louisiana State rep. He was not governor UM,
but I think he ran for some some high off
he did. He ran, Uh. He was a candidate for
the Democratic presidential primaries in the late eighties and then
(23:47):
the Republican primaries in ninety two. He ran as a
Democrat and then a I could see that solid South
kind of thing. Yeah, And I think he ran for
state Senate and lost U S Senate and lost US
House and loss and he did run for governor of
Louisiana but he lost got okay. And and you maybe
if you're if you didn't grow up in the eighties,
(24:07):
you may have heard his name more recently because um,
he fully endorsed uh Donald Trump's campaign and after Donald
Trump won he um, this was his quote on Twitter.
Make no mistake, our people have played a huge role
in electing Trump. So he was he was in the
news again more recently. Well, he was also in Charlottesville. Um,
(24:30):
if not leading the rally to Unite the Right, definitely
a big speaker at it, a big a big part
of it. Um. And Spike Lee uses some of his
footage from that rally. Uh, they kind of get across that,
you know, this stuff is still going on. This isn't
from the seventies or or earlier. How great was so
(24:52):
for Grace? He was wonderful. It was so good. And
he looks a lot like David Duke of the seventies.
He really does. Unfortunately for Stash in the three piece
suits and all that. So you had a good job,
but so so yeah in the movie Too for Grace,
from that seventies show, um always he will always be
from that seventies show he plays um what do you
(25:14):
want me to say? Like he he had a bit
part in Oceans eleven or something. Brad Pitt's character was
teaching him to play poker. I think you know that guy,
know he's that sevent so so he he plays David
Duke in the in the movie and there this this is,
this is it's really funny, like Spike Lee added stuff
that it's just you you would think like, well, yeah,
(25:35):
of course it's totally believable, like Chuck being Jewish in
real life, and he actually wasn't. That's that's fabricated by
the movie. So you would just not even think twice
about that. But it turns out that's not true. The
stuff that seems the least true was actually the stuff
that actually happened, and for a very long time, at
the very least. Over the course of this nine month investigation,
(25:56):
there were multiple phone calls that were very cordial and
friendly where um ron Stalworth would call David Duke, imposing
as a White Clam member and pump him from information
they would talk about, you know, David Duke's family and like,
just have no normal conversations that would inevitably turn back
to racism and the um the weakening of the white
(26:18):
race at the hands of you know, the Jewish media
and all the minorities who are taking over, and so
it would it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later,
I think in the book in an interviews where if
you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a
pleasant person to talk to, and that's where that weird
friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from
(26:39):
those conversations. But there is exactly but there is at
least one video of David Duke basically admitting that, yes,
this he had conversations with this guy. He tries to
downplay it, but he does basically verify that, yes, that's true,
that really happened, and probably, like I can't remember every
(27:00):
phone call I had with every random racist over the years,
even this guy posing his one um. All right, well
let's take another break and we're gonna go We're gonna
talk a little bit more about this weird David Duke
relationship right after this. Alright, so he's buddying up with
(27:44):
David Duke on the phone. He's fooling everybody. And he
even like you get the sense that he does have
a little bit of sense of humor. Um Stalworth, because
at one point he even goaded him on the phone
a little bit. And this is in the movie and
it was totally true. He's said, you know, Mr Duke,
have you ever worried about like a black man posing
(28:05):
as a white man and infiltrating your organization? And Duke
said no, and he said uh. And this this is
from the NPR interview with Stalworth. He said, I can
tell you're white because you don't talk like a black man.
He said, you talk like a very smart, intellectual white man.
And I can tell by the way you pronounced certain words.
And he said, you know, give me an example, and
(28:26):
he said, black people tend to pronounce the word are aura.
And I can tell by listening to you that you're
not black because you do not pronounce that word in
that manner. It's science case closed. Oh boy, he was
so easily duped. I love it. Uh. And then they also,
uh did in fact meet in person. Um, that part
(28:49):
is true as well. Duke came to town um and
was having lunch. It was not a big ceremony like
in the movie, but he came to town to have
lunch and the department assigned Stalworth to protect him, and
so he goes there to the restaurant, introduces himself to
protect him. Duke says, all right, I appreciate you them,
(29:10):
you know, sending someone my way. And Chuck is undercover
there as well, and he does, in fact, Stalworth pose
with David Duke and gets a polaroid with him. So
this sounded to me like what what was the what
was going on here? Like, I mean, like, you've got
this investigation going this is this takes place during this
this undercover investigation that Stalworth's conducting. You have a guy
(29:34):
who's already like putting himself out there, Chuck, as as
the white Ron Stalworth. And then the chief says, oh, yes,
by the way, Um, you the only African American police
officer in our entire um squad. You go be David
Duke's bodyguard for the day while he's in town in
Colorado Springs. Like that was just bizarre. And not only
(29:57):
do it, um do that that that very like obvious
over act slap in the face to David Duke, which
was great, but if it but it could have jeopardized
like this whole, this whole thing, because also you had
the guy portraying ron Stalworth um in the same room
at the same lunch. It just seemed really strange. And
again that it was one of those things where when
(30:18):
you watched the movie you would think like, well, that's
just made up. No, that actually took place, at least
according to ron Stalworth's memoirs, and that that that Chuck
was in the room was asked to take a picture
by Ron Stalworth with David Duke and the Grand Dragon
I guess who must be like the head of the
state in Colorado. And then the last second, when he
(30:42):
was counting down, he put his arms around the shoulders
of the two clan guys and then got his hands
on the picture. Apparently all of that was the case,
but he's since lost the picture. Yeah, and Duke really
did try to get it back, and uh, Stalworth like
got to it quicker and said basically like if you
try to take this thing, I will have arrested for
assaulting a police officer. Right, don't do it, don't think
(31:03):
about it, right, So he said he lost it in
a move he wished he had taken better care of it.
But um, the idea that it was like that, that's
just so nuts. It tells you a lot about the
investigation though to me, Like it makes you say, like, okay,
how seriously were they taking this investigation at the time.
If Stalworth later said all right, this is this is
(31:25):
just um, you know, this is just another job to me.
When I started it, I did the job, and then
when it was done, I moved on to another job.
The fact that he didn't talk about it much until
I think he spoke about it to the press once
in two thousand and six a Desert News article, um,
and then didn't talk about it again until two thousand
fourteen when his memoirs came out. Um, it was just
(31:47):
like a thing that they were doing that other people
were doing other stuff too. Um. And then to to
have like that part of it, that the idea that
you would you would jeopardize it in that way, it
just makes it like they weren't taking it as that
big of an operation as as like the movie would
like to to believe. I'm not sure. Well, I think
(32:08):
in in real life it was it was a information
gathering investigation Like it was never we're going to take
down the clan in Colorado. UM, it was let's infiltrate
and get as much information in fact finding as we can. UM.
And in the end, after eight months, UM, that's kind
of what happened. It was he considers Stalworth considers it
(32:31):
a success and that they fulfilled their mission. UM. They
did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight months
span or at nine months span. And they did identify
UM clan members who worked at Norad right who apparently
they said they, I mean these days they would be
fired probably, but they said they reassigned them to like
Greenland or something, right because they had access to the
(32:55):
two nuclear weapons. Apparently they had very high level clearance
at nora Ad, which is scary. And then they also
found plans that they didn't act on, like the whole
bomb plot in the movie was was made up for
dramatic purposes. But they did find links between for a
plan to UM bomb a gay nightclub and another plan
(33:18):
to steal automatic weapons from an army base, like an
inside job. So it was, you know, it was valuable
work they were doing, for sure, It just wasn't like,
we're going to take the clan down, Like, I don't
think it was the the Department's big, big job at
the time. No, certainly not. And and in the memoirs
and in the movie to the the reason that's given
for the the U the undercover operation to end is
(33:41):
because it started to become successful. Um Ron Stalworth was
nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of the clan.
Like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take my job.
Everybody likes you. You're really good at this, you're smart, Um,
you should lead the clan here uh and the the
police chief of Colorado Springs. So that's it, close it down,
(34:02):
burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was
worried about what what a pr nightmare it would be
if it got out that some of his detectives were
in the Colorado Springs Clan. But at the same time,
what strikes me is odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez,
this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado
(34:23):
Springs Clan. He's talking to David Duke like, really that
this this could not be kind of blown up into
a larger investigation or a larger staying or something like that.
And then secondly, and um Ron Stalworth himself addresses this,
there's a very frequently a criticism of well, if this
was such a big operation and they found all this stuff,
(34:44):
why wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests? And right,
not just David Duke. Stal Wars says also that some
that in law enforcement to people question that, like why
wasn't anyone arrested? And he said, it was an intel
investigation and and that's what they did, is they gathered stuff.
But then he very rightly points out, like you said,
(35:05):
like the fact that they prevented cross burnings alone makes
it a worthwhile and valuable operation. I think just some
people on the outside are saying, well, why wasn't why
wasn't more done? Why didn't more come out of this?
You know? And I'm not quite sure what they're driving at,
but there are you know. Stalworth brings that up in
an interview I read with him like that people do
ask that and wonder about that. Yeah, and Stalworth it's
(35:28):
very proud of the fact that with the cross burnings.
He was like, no, I can't remember the quote, but
he said something about like, no children in Colorado Springs
got you know, no young black kids had to see
crosses on fire during that eight or nine month period,
and uh, very proud of that, as he should be. Yeah,
for real. Um, so I mentioned the voice earlier and
(35:48):
the fact that he had a different voice obviously than Chuck,
and um, he said one time, only one time. Uh,
and I think this was in the movie, wasn't it was?
I was actually know it was. I remember. Yeah, So
one time in the whole investigation, did someone say like,
wait a minute, you sound different? Um, Chuck had just
been at a in person meeting, came back. Uh, and
(36:12):
then um Stalworth wants to follow up on the phone
with Ken O'Dell about something right afterward. So he had
just heard Chuck's voice for whatever this whole meeting and
was talking to him and he was like, wait a minute,
you sound different. What's going on? And he just pulled
it off. He coughed and said he had a sinus infection,
and Ken O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you
clear that up and gave him some good sinus medication advice. Yeah,
(36:36):
they definitely appeared in the movie. I mean you could
not make this thing up. You know, it's crazy. No
for real and no, apparently for a long time, Stalworth
was saying like, yeah, I was just another job. It
was just another operation. And I guess he told some
some fellow like law enforcement friends or whatever about it,
and they're like, dude, you this is a movie. You
(36:57):
need to write this down, You need to get this
out there. You this is a one in a million story. Yeah.
I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation wise
was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it,
like he's the voice, but they're sending a a white
man like it's it's I'm surprised he pulled it off
for that long. Yeah, I could totally see that one
(37:20):
final thing that did not happen in real life but
did happen in the movie. And this is what when
you usually will change real life is to to get
a more satisfying ending. But Stalwart did not, unfortunately, reveal
his true identity to David Duke like he does to
hilarious effect in the film. Unfortunately. No, he was saying like, yeah,
(37:44):
he just he didn't really talk about it until the
two thousand's, So David Duke didn't know until I guess
the memoirs came out. Yeah, and you know, well, I
guess we should talk about Spike Lee getting criticized. Um,
Boots Riley director, Uh who, I had a movie crush
by the way, he um, what was his movie? Sorry
(38:05):
to Bother You? Was his film that he made? No,
I mean his pick for movie crush. His pick was
a movie called Mishima, A Life and Four Chapters. Okay, yeah,
it was a great film and his like, his knowledge
on movies was deep. He turned me onto a lot
of cool things. Thought for a very a very terrible second,
(38:25):
you were saying his pick was his own movie. No no,
but he uh, you know, Boots does not hold back
on what he thinks. Um. And while you would think
that he would be like, oh no, I'm gonna be
a champion of Spike Lee and telling the story, he
came out very publicly on Twitter and the very uh
intelligently criticized that he didn't just bag on it. He
(38:47):
wrote a big, um long statement on exactly what he
thought was wrong with it. Yeah. He basically said, look, man,
if you take away all the embellishments that Spike Lee
added to this movie, what you have is a a
guy who who's probably biggest assignment. And I'm not sure
where he got this, but he focused on that that
um Stokely Carmichael thing and the fact that UM ron
(39:09):
Stalworth had worked undercover UM to infiltrate the Black Power
movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked on
that for like three years. That this clan thing was
just a like a nine month thing. And he also
criticized Spike Lee for making it making the movie seem
like law enforcement and the Black Power movement came together
(39:31):
to fight racism and that that like that was a
larger pointer, that that was historically accurate or something like that. Um,
it was a really interesting It was like a three
page essay that he posted on Twitter that made some
good points. He basically said, from what I can tell,
it looks like ron Stalworth was working for co intel Pro,
(39:51):
which is the FBI s um it was their their
program to undermine groups, including Black Power group, which we
mentioned it in the Black Panther episode we did, and
it the Coentel Pro definitely deserves its own episode, and
it was it was ended officially in ninety one, but
I think Boots Riley's point was, um, it might have
(40:14):
been officially ended, but the work was still going on.
And if this guy was infiltrating Black Power UM like
groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly trying to
break them up one way or another, probably using cointel
um purposes or or practices. And Ron Stalworth he had
a pretty great quote in response to it. He said, um,
(40:38):
I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in response to
Boots Riley and Spike Lee has no comment about it whatsoever,
So who knows. But you make a good point that
like he's he's he's not just giving like blind allegiance
to anything. Sure. Well, Spike did comment eventually, Oh I
didn't see that. Yeah, he was. He was in an interview.
(40:59):
In the first thing he said was like, hey, I'm
a I'm a young man of sixty one or something
like that, and like, you know, young me might have
kind of gotten into a war of words, but he's
just not into that anymore. Um. But he did say, uh,
briefly something about listen, I'm not gonna come out and
say that all cops are a racist and all cops
(41:22):
do bad things because they don't all do bad things.
There's a lot of great cops, there's also bad cops. Um,
And he kind of just couched it in that and
then was like, but you know, I'm not gonna be
really talking about this anymore, right, Yeah, I hadn't seen
that he'd even had that comment. So it's interesting stuff
and it's a good movie at the very least. Oh
for sure. You know, I think I think ron stalwarts like, man,
(41:45):
they made a movie about my story. That's pretty awesome
and at the very least it's a pretty great movie.
How about that? Totally totally so um, if you you
got anything else, I got nothing else. If you want
to know more about black claims, mean, you should probably
go see that movie. And I guess we probably should
have said at the outset this episode is not an ad,
of course not. We just like the movie a lot, right, Yeah,
(42:09):
I mean you could say it's an ad, but like,
no one gave us money or asses to do this. Sure, Uh, okay,
endorsing it. Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it
as well. It has two thumbs up, as it were,
rest in peace Roger Ebert and giene Ciscal two thumbs Okay,
So if already already said that. How about some listener mail. Yeah,
(42:33):
I'm gonna call this ping pong response from a former pro. Hey, guys,
want to come in you on the job you did
covering a sport that you didn't have an extensive, extensive
knowledge of. I'm a professional table tennis coach and former player.
I started playing in college. Thought it was really good
until I was coerced to go to a tournament at
Princeton University about twenty years ago and I got destroyed.
(42:53):
I didn't like that, so I saw it out to
coach and the rest is history. You guys clearly did
a lot of research and to highlight the things that
most novice players aren't aware of. But there were a
few things I couldn't help but point out. Josh, you
mentioned the components of the modern racket. You said the
pimpled sign those are called pips are for spinning the ball,
(43:13):
that the smooth side is for defensive play. But the
opposite is actually true. Um I didn't catch that because
I would have pointed that out. I thought everyone knew that.
Thank you for that. You get good spin on that
smooth side for real? Oh yeah, yeah, it's grippy. All right, uh,
he said. The smooth side is very tacky um as
(43:34):
in sticky, and that combined with the sponge underneath, allows
the ball to sink in just enough so that the
taxi service grips the ball and generates a lot of spin. Also,
you can have really have any combination of rubber that
you want as long as it's I T t F approved.
Players are not restricted to having one smooth side and
one with pips, but one side does have to be
(43:55):
read and the other black. Most defensive players use pips
on their back hand because ups vary the spin that
is coming back at you and it's very hard to read. Also, Chuck,
you mentioned that defensive players are called chiselers. They're actually
called choppers, as they chopped the ball back with varying
back spin. I've never heard the term chiselers. I'm wondering
if it is extremely outdated. Maybe I bet you that
(44:18):
was the gates I had old research. Chisela's all right,
that's what they call them. That's funny, he said. If
you guys are ever in the done Ellen, New Jersey area,
stopped by there right now, stopped by the Lily Yep
Table Tennis Club and I'll gladly hook you guys up
with a lesson. I will gladly humiliate you in person.
(44:39):
And that is Thomas from Philly. Thanks Thomas, um much appreciated.
We like it when we were gently corrected because we
like to be right, so thanks for that. Uh. If
you want to get in touch with us, let us know, UM,
I don't know something we got wrong about black Clansman.
Let us know. You can find all of our so
(45:00):
show links on Stuff you Should Know dot com and
has always Send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
(45:22):
H
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the
three of us together. It's movie crush. I mean, stuffy
(00:22):
should have This does have some stink on it, doesn't
it some movie stink? I know your game is cool. Uh.
I didn't even ask you have you seen Black Klansman.
I I was like, I can't. I can't do this
episode without having seen it. So I watched it last night.
Oh nice? Yeah good? Huh Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.
(00:43):
I like uh. I like his choice at the end,
like just completely pull a somersault on the viewer. Oh
sure with that last bit. Yeah, like spoiler alert pretty yeah,
for sure. We should probably say that out of the gate.
If you haven't seen this yet and you don't want
it to be spoiled, don't listen this episode first. But um, yeah,
(01:03):
I guess now that we said that, we can speak freely, right, yes, So,
um the if if the entire movie was basically to
disarm you up to the end, then I think it's
one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. In my life.
And even if it wasn't, that wasn't the entire point
of the movie. It was still it was still great.
(01:24):
And how he pulled it out at the end, I think, yeah,
well this was I don't know if you remember, but
this is the movie I saw in Perth, Australia that
happens at the end, that big, you know, sort of
gut punch of realism at the end. And I stood
up and I was like, hmm, like, I wonder what
they they're thinking here in Perth. They're probably thinking what
(01:47):
just happened? What's wrong with America? Yeah, and I'm going
I might good to see you. I'm not American, I'm Canadian.
Can't you tail bloke? Oh goodness? Uh yeah it was.
It was one of those things where I was like,
I'm kind of slightly embarrassed right now. Like that. I
(02:09):
enjoyed the movie, though I thought to see Spike Lee,
who am just He's one of my favorite filmmakers in
his sixties, still just bringing the juice like this. I
loved it. Yeah. I also loved that it was controversial
too um and that like some people criticized Spike Lee
for like not going far enough for maybe kind of
um glossing over some of the ugly aspects of the story. Yeah,
(02:32):
well you want to get to that at the end, maybe, Yeah, yeah,
for sure, but we'll we'll give it a pre mentioned
shout out, which is what we just did. Right, So
we are talking about the uh, the true story of
the film Black Klansman, Spike Lea's movie that won the
Grand Prize at the con Film Festival. It's nominated for
(02:54):
Academy Awards. Yeah, three Oscars, I believe for including Best Picture, Yeah,
I think Picture Director, and Supporting Actor for who I
would guess Adam Driver. I didn't see. Really. Yeah. I
was surprised because Denzel's son did a wonderful job as well.
He loves he loves that being known as that, right.
(03:16):
I can't remember his first name, but you know, Denzel's son.
He he was um like, there were several times when
he was talking and I was like, oh, you're definitely
Denzel Washington's son man, just the way he talked, the
the sound of his voice. But also is acting too,
He's a good actor. Yeah, so alright, Best Picture, Best
Supporting Actor for Adam Driver, Best Director, and Best Original
(03:39):
Music Score. Oh nice, but yeah, he is. I didn't
know he was Denzel's son until after the movie. Yeah,
I could see that. And he was a football player,
do you know that? I didn't. Who do you play for?
He played for Morehouse here in Atlanta. He was a
running back and then played an NFL in the practice
squad for the RAM and then eventually played a few
(04:02):
years in NFL Europe and the UFL until he hung
up his cleats six years ago. Oh that's cool. Yeah,
playing football in Europe has got to be a surreal experience. Yeah,
because it's a soccer ball and everyone's like, what are
you doing? This is all wrong? All right? So should
we way back in to the nineteen seventies, the groovy
(04:24):
seventies of Denver, Colorado. First, first we should say his
name is John David Washington. You were kidding Denzel's son? Yes,
So yeah, let's get in the way back machine and see. Uh,
let go inspect their terrible, low quality pot. So Ron
(04:46):
Stalworth is the true to life character's name. Who There
was a football player growing when we were growing up
named John Stalworth. So I'm always wanting to say John Stalworth,
this is not him. This is a cop named Ron Stalworth,
that's right, and he had a few designations that are
pretty important. He was the first African American police officer
to work for the Colorado Springs Police Department, which he
(05:08):
joined as a cadet at the age of nineteen in
seventy two, and then a couple of years later on
his twenty one birthday, on his twenty first birthday, that's
what I saw at June eighteenth. I believe Nice was
sworn in as a full on officer of the law,
right And I'm not sure if like they just swear
you in on your twenty one birthday or if it
just so happened that the ceremony was on his twenty
(05:31):
first birthday, But regardless, it was a big deal. He's
the first African American cop and then later on detective
for Colorado Springs. So that's that's a big deal, especially
starting out at age twenty one two. That takes a
lot of cojones as they call it in Colorado. I
think they call those rocky Mountain oysters. That's right, that
is what they call him. So he worked undercover for
(05:54):
about thirty years um long great careers and undercover detective,
but it was this case which only came out about
four years ago when he wrote a book about it
about his career. Um, when he went under cover as
a well as a klansman. But it's a little more
complicated than that. It is. It was a very complicated operation,
(06:19):
right yeah. And and this wasn't something that like um,
I mean he even says in this NPR interview that
he didn't. It was just a job at that particular
point in time. And when that particular job ended, that
is the undercover stint, which was about about eight or
nine months, I moved on to something else and it
just happened by circumstance. So he didn't come in there
(06:41):
with a bone to pick with the clan, aside from
probably every bone to pick that he had with the clan,
right just as a black man in America. Oh yeah,
And I knew it would probably help to give a
little background on the clan at the time, because you know,
the clan was very well known for being really big
and really violent at over. Three waves is basically how
(07:01):
the clan history is divided. Like the first wave was
when they were um, they were founded in the wake
of the Civil War. UM. Then they had the second
wave came around the nineteen teens, like nineteen fifty fifteen,
I mean, um, that that era, and then they had
another big resurgence during the Civil rights are in the
(07:24):
fifties and sixties. But you know, in between these waves
and after that third wave, it's not like the clan
just went away. They just they kept on going. Their
profile was lower and maybe there um the public violence
or terrorism that they were engaging in wasn't quite as pronounced,
but they were still there. And in Colorado in particular,
(07:46):
they had a really long history with the clan where
basically the city of Denver was in the under the
control of the clan back in the twenties, just you know,
fifty years before um Ron Stalworth's started working there. Yeah
he was. He got when he when he got hired there,
he got access to files like secret FBI files, and
(08:07):
he got to go in and dig in and look
at the history of the clan in Colorado, and boy,
like you ain't kidding, they were in the House of Representatives.
There were senators. Both senators were Clans members. The mayor
Benjamin Stapleton, who the airport was named after, until yeah,
(08:27):
his great grandson ran for governor um on the GOP
ticket this past election and lost to who is Colorado's
first ever openly gay Jewish governor. Wow, Colorado is a
weird state. It is an odd state for different ideologies
all packed in together. It's very purple in all sorts
(08:50):
of ways. Yeah, so, uh, Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a
clan member. The governor Clarence Morley was a clan member.
UM a chief of police, which is I mean, you
don't want anyone in these positions to be clan members,
but I imagine the chief of police is one of
the more problematic areas a person in that kind of control,
(09:11):
particularly that one too. He was basically he was picked
by the clan, the Colorado Clan um and basically foisted
on Benjamin Stapleton. Who who Who was even like, Wow,
this guy's even too much for my tastes, and UM
eventually fired him. But like the clan picked the chief
(09:32):
of police of Denver, Colorado back in the twenties. Oh yeah,
And they tried to recall Stapleton at one point. It
didn't work, and when that effort failed, the clan burned
across on the top of Table Mountain as a celebration,
a show of public celebration. Right, So the clan has
deep roots in the old story in Colorado, or at
(09:52):
least they used to, and they were still very much
around when um uh, when Ron Stalworth started as his stegationer,
started as the um, the first black detective in Colorado Springs, right,
that's right. And so he started out, I guess is
kind of playing clothes and was assigned um undercover work
(10:15):
pretty quickly, just just by his um, just by being
the only African American UH officer in the police force.
Because Stokely Carmichael came to town once, that's right, And
this is in the film. We're gonna talk about a
few differences between the movie and and the real story.
But he did, in fact to go to a speech
(10:37):
and a rally by famous black panther Stokely Carmichael, and
he was, you know, fully kidded out in his bell
bottoms and his wearing a wire he picked his afro out,
and he in fact did make a point to meet him,
just like he did in the film. And Carmichael did
apparently say arm yourself and get ready because the revolution
(10:59):
has come ing. And I imagine Stalworth had some mixed
feelings about that assignment. Yeah, I guess so. Um, it's
kind of like, I don't really have any idea of
what he personally was like because the movie mixed things
up so much and like added layers that weren't necessarily there.
So I have no idea what what that experience would
(11:21):
have been like for him, you know. Yeah. One thing
we do know is not true is the character in
the film of Patrese, whom he meets at that rally,
young woman that he falls in love with. She was
made up for the movie. Spike Lee wanted a a
love interest basically and to represent sort of the the
female black power movement as a whole. So she was
(11:43):
completely made up. But she was terrific in the film. Yeah. Yeah,
Laura Harry Or she's in the New Spider Man movies too,
She's awesome, cool, the New Spider Verse movie No no, no,
that's animated. Okay, well, she could have been a voice actor,
I guess right. Yeah. Now she's in then the One,
the New Ones with the New the New Kid, okay,
the New Spidy Kid, the Current spider Man, Current Spider Man,
(12:06):
which is great. Those are good movies. I haven't seen
any of them. You're not super into that stuff. The
ore you Well, I saw the Infinity War when he
was in that. I think, Yeah, he's a bit of
a smart alec. Frankly, he is um so okay. He
he does his research on the deep roots of the
clan in Colorado, he goes undercover and then I don't
(12:30):
think he was even assigned this thing. I think he
kind of came up with it on his own by chance,
almost uh, in October night. He was twenty five at
this point, and he was looking through the local paper.
Well that was part of his assignment, to gather intelligence
by reading the paper. Well, right, but I don't think
I think this was his idea to go undercover like this.
(12:51):
That's the impression I have to. He seemed like a
self starter, uh in a lot of ways. So he
found this ad um classified ad in the paper for
the clan, UH said get in touch of you aren't
further information. He sent a letter posing as a white
racist to a po box, just thinking that he would
(13:12):
just get back some pamphlets or something. So he signed
his real name, which is uh. He didn't really think
that went through. No, he didn't, and he didn't he
never really fully explained it aside from the best explanation
I saw is that he didn't think anything was going
to come of it. He thought he'd get, like you said,
a couple of pamphlets and that would be that. UM.
(13:33):
And he just wasn't planning to create like a large
investigation out of making contact through this this ad. And
and again we should probably state this. It was an
ad in the paper for the client to get in
touch with the clan, to get more info about the
clan and maybe you might want to join who knows? Um. So,
(13:54):
so he he makes contact with him by sending off
a letter. And if you ask me if if if
Spike Lee were directing this episode, he would put an
ad break right here. That was good. Who are we
to disagree? All right, we'll be right back, okay. So,
(14:35):
like we said, ron Stalworth is thumbing through the newspaper.
He mails off a letter to get more info about
the clan, and um he uses his real name, and
and like like you said, Chuck, he was expecting like
a pamphlet or something in return, like so you want
to be a clan member or something like that. Um. Instead,
(14:56):
about two weeks later he got a call from the number.
So he used everything as far as the undercover operation
would go. Um, he used all of his undercover info
except for his name. So he got a call on
his undercover phone line from a guy named Ken O'Dell
And he was pretty surprised to get this call because
again he was expecting a pamphlet and instead he had
(15:18):
a real life, living, breathing Ku Klux Klansman on the
other end of the line saying Hey, I got your
letter about hating black people and other minorities. Let's talk. Yeah,
he was like, why are you interested, and Stalworth immediately
just kind of goes into character. Uh, and I guess
(15:38):
that's what you You know, when you're undercover, you you
got to be part improv actor, right to be able
to pull that off. Well. He also he said he
drew from his own personal experiences because he grew up
in El Paso and encountered a lot of racism there
and I'm sure on the force in Colorado Springs too,
so he drew from his own experience as well. Yeah,
(15:59):
so he basically right out of the gate says, well,
you know, uh, my sister's dating a black man, and
every time he puts his hands on her, on her
pure white body. I cringe, and I want to do
something about it. And Ken O'Dell says, he sounds like
a great guy. Why once you come on down and
(16:19):
let's meet, because you are just the kind of uh
kind of dude we're looking for. You sound like real
clan material. Yeah. I thought about maybe doing an episode
on the clan. I thought about the two and then
I'm like, do you want to give him a platform? Yeah?
But then I thought, or you know, you could just
talk about it and how stupid they are? All right?
(16:39):
Like it when I was a kid. I mean, of course,
being in Georgia, that stuff was around. I never like
saw it firsthand, obviously, but you heard things even like
growing up in the seventies in Georgia, and I was
always so scared of the whole thing because of the
outfits and everything and the fire. Uh. And I was
a good little Baptist boy, so there was a lot
of fear. But then I got a little older and
(17:01):
I was like, they're just dumb rednecks wearing sheets, right,
sort of demystified it. This is the moment you become
an adult. Yeah, But I mean, of course, then I
would later learn that they did real horrific things and
took lives and you know, or a terrorist organization. Right.
But I think what you're saying is they made themselves
(17:22):
up to be Boogeyman exactly, and they definitely can be
that way, especially in the young mind or something like that.
But yeah, um so, so back to the story. Ron
Stalworth is on the phone with this guy named Ken
O'Dell who wants to meet him to see if he'd
like to join the clan. And this is a big
problem because I think, as we mentioned a couple of times,
(17:43):
ron Stalworth was African American. He's like, oh boy, what
do I do here? Right? So he actually recruited a
fellow detective who he in his book calls Chuck. That's
all he's ever publicly referred to the guy as his Chuck.
Wait was it you, Chuck? It was not me that
that gentleman is I guess either still undercover or just
(18:05):
never wanted his identity out there, right, So he yeah,
he may still live in Colorado Springs. Who knows, maybe
he's on a case right now for all I know.
But so this Chuck guy, uh, he's he was recruited
by Ron Stalwarts, who play Ron Stalworth to the clan.
Because Chuck was white, he was already an undercover narcotics agent,
(18:25):
and apparently he was friendly enough with Ron Stalwarts to say, yes,
I will, I will join this investigation, buddy, let's do it. Yeah.
And here's the thing, though, he was, uh, this wasn't
his like primary case. So Chuck is undercover on a
lot of different assignments, so he's not around as much
as Stalworth needs him. So, like in the movie, most
(18:47):
of this stuff is done over the phone. Like, he
spends a lot of time in this investigation on the
phone speaking to these klansmen who think that he's a
white man, and when they needed to meet, he would
send Chuck in who uh And we'll get to the
voice part in a minute. Because that's when I was
watching the movie. I was like, didn't know that these
(19:09):
dummies not realize that they don't sound anything alike, right,
you know, because they've been talking to him on the
phone at length. Um. But they had their they had
their first meeting. Um, they got together and I believe
they met. Um they met somewhere at first and then
went to a bar after like as the second part
of that meeting. Yeah, they met at a convenie. So
(19:30):
the movie is supposedly portrays this realistically, they they this
Chuck guy, who is portraying ron Stalworth through the clan
um met They met at a convenience store and he
was said he was told to get in the car
and then they drove to a second location, which, man,
that's scary stuff. And also he's also wearing a wire
at the time, Like that's something that that the movie
(19:51):
kind of gets across, but especially like articles about the
story don't necessarily dive into this. Chuck cat was like
putting himself out there as every undercover detective does, right. So,
I mean, ron Stalworth is conducting this investigation, he's the
mastermind of He's leading this whole thing. But this poor
Chuck I has to go hang out with these you know,
(20:12):
violent clans members or clan members on you know what,
like fairly frequently from what I understand. So hats off
to him. Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean it was it
was definitely like it required both of their best efforts
to get away with this for that long. It was
quite the ruse. So Chuck meets with them eventually earns
their trust along with the phone work of Stalworth, and
(20:35):
then he actually gets um successfully admitted about two months
later and got his little I guess you get a
little membership card. He still has it, he does. He
did not throw it away like in the movie. He
hasn't framed in fact, and on the back of the
card where six codes of conduct, one of which said,
(20:56):
UM never discussed any clan affairs with any plain clothes
officer on a state, local, or national level. So there
is a lot of comedy in the movie if you
haven't seen it, Um, I mean, it's it's a serious
thing that they're doing, but there are a lot of
laughs as well, a lot of laughs and a lot
of like movie formula steps that Spike Lee purposefully follows,
(21:18):
you know, very faithfully too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um
there's a big point there that we left out the
Chuck so to get that membership card supposedly, again, as
they say in Colorado, the oysters on this guy his
he had so he met so the fake Um, fake
Ron Stallworth Chuck met with the clan impressed them enough.
(21:38):
Between Ron's the real Ron Stalwarts phone calls and Chuck's
whatever Chuck was saying in in person. All this combined
made the Colorado Springs Clan members say, okay, we like you,
we want you to be a member. Fill out this
application and we'll send it off to them to the
national director of of Again the clan al we should say.
(21:59):
I don't know if we've ever said that. The clan
calls itself the organization rather than the clan. So they
and and the guy who ran the thing, I don't
know if he still runs it or not, but he
definitely did at this time during this investigation is a
guy named David Duke, who if you grew up in
the eighties or I think even the nineties, you were
probably pretty familiar with David Duke. I believe he ran
(22:21):
for president once. Didn't he? I don't know. I mean
he was, he was. Wasn't he the governor of Louisiana.
I don't. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he ran
for that. But he was the grand wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan, and he was trying to make it
a more political organization. Let's let's have a terrorist organization
and more of a political organization under his guidance, but
(22:41):
it was still the Ku Klux Klan Like there was
still plenty of times when he was wearing robes and
stuff he just never did in public. So during this
time he was he was the national director, the Grand
Wizard of the clan. And when ron Stalworth didn't get
his application pushed through fast enough, he picked up the phone,
had called the national headquarters and ended up talking with
(23:04):
David Duke and saying like, Hey, my application is taking
a while. Is there anything you can do about it?
And this kicked off like a what what um ron
Stalworth would later characterize in a weird way as a
friendship between him, a black undercover detective in Colorado, and
David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah.
(23:25):
And by the way, I don't want to get uh
angry emails from David Duke's reporters. Uh. He was a
Republican UM Louisiana State rep. He was not governor UM,
but I think he ran for some some high off
he did. He ran, Uh. He was a candidate for
the Democratic presidential primaries in the late eighties and then
(23:47):
the Republican primaries in ninety two. He ran as a
Democrat and then a I could see that solid South
kind of thing. Yeah, And I think he ran for
state Senate and lost U S Senate and lost US
House and loss and he did run for governor of
Louisiana but he lost got okay. And and you maybe
if you're if you didn't grow up in the eighties,
(24:07):
you may have heard his name more recently because um,
he fully endorsed uh Donald Trump's campaign and after Donald
Trump won he um, this was his quote on Twitter.
Make no mistake, our people have played a huge role
in electing Trump. So he was he was in the
news again more recently. Well, he was also in Charlottesville. Um,
(24:30):
if not leading the rally to Unite the Right, definitely
a big speaker at it, a big a big part
of it. Um. And Spike Lee uses some of his
footage from that rally. Uh, they kind of get across that,
you know, this stuff is still going on. This isn't
from the seventies or or earlier. How great was so
(24:52):
for Grace? He was wonderful. It was so good. And
he looks a lot like David Duke of the seventies.
He really does. Unfortunately for Stash in the three piece
suits and all that. So you had a good job,
but so so yeah in the movie Too for Grace,
from that seventies show, um always he will always be
from that seventies show he plays um what do you
(25:14):
want me to say? Like he he had a bit
part in Oceans eleven or something. Brad Pitt's character was
teaching him to play poker. I think you know that guy,
know he's that sevent so so he he plays David
Duke in the in the movie and there this this is,
this is it's really funny, like Spike Lee added stuff
that it's just you you would think like, well, yeah,
(25:35):
of course it's totally believable, like Chuck being Jewish in
real life, and he actually wasn't. That's that's fabricated by
the movie. So you would just not even think twice
about that. But it turns out that's not true. The
stuff that seems the least true was actually the stuff
that actually happened, and for a very long time, at
the very least. Over the course of this nine month investigation,
(25:56):
there were multiple phone calls that were very cordial and
friendly where um ron Stalworth would call David Duke, imposing
as a White Clam member and pump him from information
they would talk about, you know, David Duke's family and like,
just have no normal conversations that would inevitably turn back
to racism and the um the weakening of the white
(26:18):
race at the hands of you know, the Jewish media
and all the minorities who are taking over, and so
it would it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later,
I think in the book in an interviews where if
you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a
pleasant person to talk to, and that's where that weird
friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from
(26:39):
those conversations. But there is exactly but there is at
least one video of David Duke basically admitting that, yes,
this he had conversations with this guy. He tries to
downplay it, but he does basically verify that, yes, that's true,
that really happened, and probably, like I can't remember every
(27:00):
phone call I had with every random racist over the years,
even this guy posing his one um. All right, well
let's take another break and we're gonna go We're gonna
talk a little bit more about this weird David Duke
relationship right after this. Alright, so he's buddying up with
(27:44):
David Duke on the phone. He's fooling everybody. And he
even like you get the sense that he does have
a little bit of sense of humor. Um Stalworth, because
at one point he even goaded him on the phone
a little bit. And this is in the movie and
it was totally true. He's said, you know, Mr Duke,
have you ever worried about like a black man posing
(28:05):
as a white man and infiltrating your organization? And Duke
said no, and he said uh. And this this is
from the NPR interview with Stalworth. He said, I can
tell you're white because you don't talk like a black man.
He said, you talk like a very smart, intellectual white man.
And I can tell by the way you pronounced certain words.
And he said, you know, give me an example, and
(28:26):
he said, black people tend to pronounce the word are aura.
And I can tell by listening to you that you're
not black because you do not pronounce that word in
that manner. It's science case closed. Oh boy, he was
so easily duped. I love it. Uh. And then they also,
uh did in fact meet in person. Um, that part
(28:49):
is true as well. Duke came to town um and
was having lunch. It was not a big ceremony like
in the movie, but he came to town to have
lunch and the department assigned Stalworth to protect him, and
so he goes there to the restaurant, introduces himself to
protect him. Duke says, all right, I appreciate you them,
(29:10):
you know, sending someone my way. And Chuck is undercover
there as well, and he does, in fact, Stalworth pose
with David Duke and gets a polaroid with him. So
this sounded to me like what what was the what
was going on here? Like, I mean, like, you've got
this investigation going this is this takes place during this
this undercover investigation that Stalworth's conducting. You have a guy
(29:34):
who's already like putting himself out there, Chuck, as as
the white Ron Stalworth. And then the chief says, oh, yes,
by the way, Um, you the only African American police
officer in our entire um squad. You go be David
Duke's bodyguard for the day while he's in town in
Colorado Springs. Like that was just bizarre. And not only
(29:57):
do it, um do that that that very like obvious
over act slap in the face to David Duke, which
was great, but if it but it could have jeopardized
like this whole, this whole thing, because also you had
the guy portraying ron Stalworth um in the same room
at the same lunch. It just seemed really strange. And
again that it was one of those things where when
(30:18):
you watched the movie you would think like, well, that's
just made up. No, that actually took place, at least
according to ron Stalworth's memoirs, and that that that Chuck
was in the room was asked to take a picture
by Ron Stalworth with David Duke and the Grand Dragon
I guess who must be like the head of the
state in Colorado. And then the last second, when he
(30:42):
was counting down, he put his arms around the shoulders
of the two clan guys and then got his hands
on the picture. Apparently all of that was the case,
but he's since lost the picture. Yeah, and Duke really
did try to get it back, and uh, Stalworth like
got to it quicker and said basically like if you
try to take this thing, I will have arrested for
assaulting a police officer. Right, don't do it, don't think
(31:03):
about it, right, So he said he lost it in
a move he wished he had taken better care of it.
But um, the idea that it was like that, that's
just so nuts. It tells you a lot about the
investigation though to me, Like it makes you say, like, okay,
how seriously were they taking this investigation at the time.
If Stalworth later said all right, this is this is
(31:25):
just um, you know, this is just another job to me.
When I started it, I did the job, and then
when it was done, I moved on to another job.
The fact that he didn't talk about it much until
I think he spoke about it to the press once
in two thousand and six a Desert News article, um,
and then didn't talk about it again until two thousand
fourteen when his memoirs came out. Um, it was just
(31:47):
like a thing that they were doing that other people
were doing other stuff too. Um. And then to to
have like that part of it, that the idea that
you would you would jeopardize it in that way, it
just makes it like they weren't taking it as that
big of an operation as as like the movie would
like to to believe. I'm not sure. Well, I think
(32:08):
in in real life it was it was a information
gathering investigation Like it was never we're going to take
down the clan in Colorado. UM, it was let's infiltrate
and get as much information in fact finding as we can. UM.
And in the end, after eight months, UM, that's kind
of what happened. It was he considers Stalworth considers it
(32:31):
a success and that they fulfilled their mission. UM. They
did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight months
span or at nine months span. And they did identify
UM clan members who worked at Norad right who apparently
they said they, I mean these days they would be
fired probably, but they said they reassigned them to like
Greenland or something, right because they had access to the
(32:55):
two nuclear weapons. Apparently they had very high level clearance
at nora Ad, which is scary. And then they also
found plans that they didn't act on, like the whole
bomb plot in the movie was was made up for
dramatic purposes. But they did find links between for a
plan to UM bomb a gay nightclub and another plan
(33:18):
to steal automatic weapons from an army base, like an
inside job. So it was, you know, it was valuable
work they were doing, for sure, It just wasn't like,
we're going to take the clan down, Like, I don't
think it was the the Department's big, big job at
the time. No, certainly not. And and in the memoirs
and in the movie to the the reason that's given
for the the U the undercover operation to end is
(33:41):
because it started to become successful. Um Ron Stalworth was
nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of the clan.
Like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take my job.
Everybody likes you. You're really good at this, you're smart, Um,
you should lead the clan here uh and the the
police chief of Colorado Springs. So that's it, close it down,
(34:02):
burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was
worried about what what a pr nightmare it would be
if it got out that some of his detectives were
in the Colorado Springs Clan. But at the same time,
what strikes me is odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez,
this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado
(34:23):
Springs Clan. He's talking to David Duke like, really that
this this could not be kind of blown up into
a larger investigation or a larger staying or something like that.
And then secondly, and um Ron Stalworth himself addresses this,
there's a very frequently a criticism of well, if this
was such a big operation and they found all this stuff,
(34:44):
why wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests? And right,
not just David Duke. Stal Wars says also that some
that in law enforcement to people question that, like why
wasn't anyone arrested? And he said, it was an intel
investigation and and that's what they did, is they gathered stuff.
But then he very rightly points out, like you said,
(35:05):
like the fact that they prevented cross burnings alone makes
it a worthwhile and valuable operation. I think just some
people on the outside are saying, well, why wasn't why
wasn't more done? Why didn't more come out of this?
You know? And I'm not quite sure what they're driving at,
but there are you know. Stalworth brings that up in
an interview I read with him like that people do
ask that and wonder about that. Yeah, and Stalworth it's
(35:28):
very proud of the fact that with the cross burnings.
He was like, no, I can't remember the quote, but
he said something about like, no children in Colorado Springs
got you know, no young black kids had to see
crosses on fire during that eight or nine month period,
and uh, very proud of that, as he should be. Yeah,
for real. Um, so I mentioned the voice earlier and
(35:48):
the fact that he had a different voice obviously than Chuck,
and um, he said one time, only one time. Uh,
and I think this was in the movie, wasn't it was?
I was actually know it was. I remember. Yeah, So
one time in the whole investigation, did someone say like,
wait a minute, you sound different? Um, Chuck had just
been at a in person meeting, came back. Uh, and
(36:12):
then um Stalworth wants to follow up on the phone
with Ken O'Dell about something right afterward. So he had
just heard Chuck's voice for whatever this whole meeting and
was talking to him and he was like, wait a minute,
you sound different. What's going on? And he just pulled
it off. He coughed and said he had a sinus infection,
and Ken O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you
clear that up and gave him some good sinus medication advice. Yeah,
(36:36):
they definitely appeared in the movie. I mean you could
not make this thing up. You know, it's crazy. No
for real and no, apparently for a long time, Stalworth
was saying like, yeah, I was just another job. It
was just another operation. And I guess he told some
some fellow like law enforcement friends or whatever about it,
and they're like, dude, you this is a movie. You
(36:57):
need to write this down, You need to get this
out there. You this is a one in a million story. Yeah.
I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation wise
was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it,
like he's the voice, but they're sending a a white
man like it's it's I'm surprised he pulled it off
for that long. Yeah, I could totally see that one
(37:20):
final thing that did not happen in real life but
did happen in the movie. And this is what when
you usually will change real life is to to get
a more satisfying ending. But Stalwart did not, unfortunately, reveal
his true identity to David Duke like he does to
hilarious effect in the film. Unfortunately. No, he was saying like, yeah,
(37:44):
he just he didn't really talk about it until the
two thousand's, So David Duke didn't know until I guess
the memoirs came out. Yeah, and you know, well, I
guess we should talk about Spike Lee getting criticized. Um,
Boots Riley director, Uh who, I had a movie crush
by the way, he um, what was his movie? Sorry
(38:05):
to Bother You? Was his film that he made? No,
I mean his pick for movie crush. His pick was
a movie called Mishima, A Life and Four Chapters. Okay, yeah,
it was a great film and his like, his knowledge
on movies was deep. He turned me onto a lot
of cool things. Thought for a very a very terrible second,
(38:25):
you were saying his pick was his own movie. No no,
but he uh, you know, Boots does not hold back
on what he thinks. Um. And while you would think
that he would be like, oh no, I'm gonna be
a champion of Spike Lee and telling the story, he
came out very publicly on Twitter and the very uh
intelligently criticized that he didn't just bag on it. He
(38:47):
wrote a big, um long statement on exactly what he
thought was wrong with it. Yeah. He basically said, look, man,
if you take away all the embellishments that Spike Lee
added to this movie, what you have is a a
guy who who's probably biggest assignment. And I'm not sure
where he got this, but he focused on that that
um Stokely Carmichael thing and the fact that UM ron
(39:09):
Stalworth had worked undercover UM to infiltrate the Black Power
movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked on
that for like three years. That this clan thing was
just a like a nine month thing. And he also
criticized Spike Lee for making it making the movie seem
like law enforcement and the Black Power movement came together
(39:31):
to fight racism and that that like that was a
larger pointer, that that was historically accurate or something like that. Um,
it was a really interesting It was like a three
page essay that he posted on Twitter that made some
good points. He basically said, from what I can tell,
it looks like ron Stalworth was working for co intel Pro,
(39:51):
which is the FBI s um it was their their
program to undermine groups, including Black Power group, which we
mentioned it in the Black Panther episode we did, and
it the Coentel Pro definitely deserves its own episode, and
it was it was ended officially in ninety one, but
I think Boots Riley's point was, um, it might have
(40:14):
been officially ended, but the work was still going on.
And if this guy was infiltrating Black Power UM like
groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly trying to
break them up one way or another, probably using cointel
um purposes or or practices. And Ron Stalworth he had
a pretty great quote in response to it. He said, um,
(40:38):
I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in response to
Boots Riley and Spike Lee has no comment about it whatsoever,
So who knows. But you make a good point that
like he's he's he's not just giving like blind allegiance
to anything. Sure. Well, Spike did comment eventually, Oh I
didn't see that. Yeah, he was. He was in an interview.
(40:59):
In the first thing he said was like, hey, I'm
a I'm a young man of sixty one or something
like that, and like, you know, young me might have
kind of gotten into a war of words, but he's
just not into that anymore. Um. But he did say, uh,
briefly something about listen, I'm not gonna come out and
say that all cops are a racist and all cops
(41:22):
do bad things because they don't all do bad things.
There's a lot of great cops, there's also bad cops. Um,
And he kind of just couched it in that and
then was like, but you know, I'm not gonna be
really talking about this anymore, right, Yeah, I hadn't seen
that he'd even had that comment. So it's interesting stuff
and it's a good movie at the very least. Oh
for sure. You know, I think I think ron stalwarts like, man,
(41:45):
they made a movie about my story. That's pretty awesome
and at the very least it's a pretty great movie.
How about that? Totally totally so um, if you you
got anything else, I got nothing else. If you want
to know more about black claims, mean, you should probably
go see that movie. And I guess we probably should
have said at the outset this episode is not an ad,
of course not. We just like the movie a lot, right, Yeah,
(42:09):
I mean you could say it's an ad, but like,
no one gave us money or asses to do this. Sure, Uh, okay,
endorsing it. Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it
as well. It has two thumbs up, as it were,
rest in peace Roger Ebert and giene Ciscal two thumbs Okay,
So if already already said that. How about some listener mail. Yeah,
(42:33):
I'm gonna call this ping pong response from a former pro. Hey, guys,
want to come in you on the job you did
covering a sport that you didn't have an extensive, extensive
knowledge of. I'm a professional table tennis coach and former player.
I started playing in college. Thought it was really good
until I was coerced to go to a tournament at
Princeton University about twenty years ago and I got destroyed.
(42:53):
I didn't like that, so I saw it out to
coach and the rest is history. You guys clearly did
a lot of research and to highlight the things that
most novice players aren't aware of. But there were a
few things I couldn't help but point out. Josh, you
mentioned the components of the modern racket. You said the
pimpled sign those are called pips are for spinning the ball,
(43:13):
that the smooth side is for defensive play. But the
opposite is actually true. Um I didn't catch that because
I would have pointed that out. I thought everyone knew that.
Thank you for that. You get good spin on that
smooth side for real? Oh yeah, yeah, it's grippy. All right, uh,
he said. The smooth side is very tacky um as
(43:34):
in sticky, and that combined with the sponge underneath, allows
the ball to sink in just enough so that the
taxi service grips the ball and generates a lot of spin. Also,
you can have really have any combination of rubber that
you want as long as it's I T t F approved.
Players are not restricted to having one smooth side and
one with pips, but one side does have to be
(43:55):
read and the other black. Most defensive players use pips
on their back hand because ups vary the spin that
is coming back at you and it's very hard to read. Also, Chuck,
you mentioned that defensive players are called chiselers. They're actually
called choppers, as they chopped the ball back with varying
back spin. I've never heard the term chiselers. I'm wondering
if it is extremely outdated. Maybe I bet you that
(44:18):
was the gates I had old research. Chisela's all right,
that's what they call them. That's funny, he said. If
you guys are ever in the done Ellen, New Jersey area,
stopped by there right now, stopped by the Lily Yep
Table Tennis Club and I'll gladly hook you guys up
with a lesson. I will gladly humiliate you in person.
(44:39):
And that is Thomas from Philly. Thanks Thomas, um much appreciated.
We like it when we were gently corrected because we
like to be right, so thanks for that. Uh. If
you want to get in touch with us, let us know, UM,
I don't know something we got wrong about black Clansman.
Let us know. You can find all of our so
(45:00):
show links on Stuff you Should Know dot com and
has always Send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
(45:22):
H
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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