Black KKKlansman: Ron Stallworth Used His Real Name to Sign up

Officer Ron Stallworth was reading the newspaper want ads in his Colorado Springs, CO police station and saw an ad seeking recruits for the Ku Klux Klan. There was a numbered post office box address so he could respond. He immediate wrote, "I hate niggers, spics, and my sister is dating a nigger." He knew the hate words he should say to convince the letter recipient he was for real. Unfortunately, given that he was a black police officer, he accidentally signed his real name.

Soon afterward he got a phone call at his undercover phone number and the man used his undercover name. The man said, "This is the Colorado Springs head of the KKK." There was no scope of operation for handling the situation so Ron stalled on meeting the man.

"I told my Sgt. Trapp what was going on," he told his audience, me included, at the Englert in Iowa City.

"You're a crazy SOB, aren't you?" Sgt. Trapp commented when Ron told him he accidentally signed his real name to the letter he wrote to the Klan.

"I asked Sgt. Trapp to get someone white to pose as me. He said I could have 'Chuck' [not his real name], a narcotics officer. Then the sergeant sent me to the lieutenant to sign off on the deal. The lieutenant said I couldn't have Chuck. I told Sgt. Trapp what the lieutenant said and the sergeant told me to go to the chief. Sgt. Trapp and I both went to the chief, and I told the chief what the lieutenant said.

"I told the chief I needed one or two officers to go with me because we didn't know what we were walking into. The chief called the lieutenant and told him to give me whatever I needed.

"Chuck was all for it. I gave him my IDs -- the ones without photos on them. I told Chuck to get as much information as he could.

"The lieutenant said it would never work because the Klan leader had talked to a black man. I asked him, 'How does he know he talked to a black man?' The lieutenant never did come up with an answer for that question.

"The chief authorized my investigation though, so I wired Chuck for sound. He met Ken O'Dell, the local Klan leader, and four other people. [That's it. There were five members of the Klan in Colorado Springs.] We had to be in constant communication over seven-and-a-half months.

"The KKK was operating under the auspices of David Duke out of New Orleans in 1978. I told Chuck, 'Get any [Klan] literature you can get.' Chuck had to pay $30 in fees, which he got from the police chief. The robe and hood were optional. The Klan required Chuck to give his [my] date of birth."

When Chuck asked Ken O'Dell, the local Klan leader, what the Klan was planning to do, Ken told him they were going to hold a "poor white folks Christmas."

"He said, 'people are always helping niggers and Jews, so.... Then we're going to bomb two gay bars in Colorado Springs.' The FBI perked up at that.

"Ken O'Dell was a soldier at Fort Carson and an explosives expert. The four other Klan members were also Fort Carson soldiers. Ken showed Chuck 13 guns stored at his home."

Once Ken noticed a difference in the speaking voices between Ron [on the phone] and Chuck in person. Ron said he had a sinus infection and Ken helpfully prescribed a remedy.

David Duke, Grand Wizard of the national KKK, was coming to Colorado Springs to "bless" the new chapter of the Klan. The Colorado Springs police department was nervous about some of the protesters planning to meet Duke.

"The Communists were the equivalent of today's Antifa," Ron said to explain why the police were nervous about the encounter. "They'd use bats [baseball bats, I assume] with placards and take the placards off if they wanted bats."

Ron called David Duke in Louisiana. Ron said, "I'm a Klan member but I can't participate in cross burnings without my membership card."

"So David Duke personally prepared my KKK card for me. I carry my membership card in the KKK signed by David Duke to this day."

Ron noted, "David Duke was a smooth, intelligent, nice guy, but on race, he was a monster."

Duke was startled by the "coincidence" of police seeming to know in advance about Klan activities. He didn't seem to suspect Ron.

When Duke came to Colorado Springs, Ron Stallworth was assigned to protect him.

"I can't do that!" Ron protested to the chief. "I'm black and he might recognize my voice!"

"There's no one else available," the chief replied. "Duke has got to have a bodyguard because there have been threats on his life."

David Duke gave "Ron" [Chuck] a Klan handshake. There were 12 Klan followers to greet Duke, counting the Klan wives.

"I brought a Polaroid camera and asked for a photo. I asked Duke for a photo because 'otherwise, no one will believe me.'

"I gave the camera to Chuck. Duke wouldn't let me put my hand on his shoulder."

This is where Ron strained credulity, but I believe him. He said that a top officer at NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) contacted him and Ron took a ride with two top officers at NORAD inside Cheyenne Mountain.

"Subsequently, two men were flown to the North Pole, people from the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) told me. I'm not sure, but those two men were gone."

Although none of my photos of Ron Stallworth came out, there are photos of him and the Ku Klux Klan membership application toward the end of his book (pp. 115ff).

Once I read the KKK's creed, I was struck by a similarity to the speech of a bigoted Congressman from the Fourth District of Iowa. See if this sounds familiar to anybody following Rep. Steve King's (R-NW IA) antics:

"Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

"Membership Application:

"I believe in the ideals of Western, Christian Civilization and culture, in the White race that created them and in the Constitution of the United States."

Steve King, who says he was "misquoted" in an interview by the New York Times, asked, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?"

Ron Stallworth did a clever job of infiltrating the Klan and he wrote a good book about it, too. He said Chuck, who isn't Jewish, is cast as Jewish in the movie because the two guys who persuaded Ron to let them write the screenplay for the movie are Jewish and they wanted "Chuck" to be Jewish.