How A Black Detective Infiltrated The KKK
From the interview
On how he infiltrated the Klan
When you've grown up and you've been called "nigger" many times in the course of your lifetime, and you've been treated negatively because of your race, it's not too hard to put on that front. …
The gambit was: I obviously, as a black man of African descent, could not meet a white supremacist posing as a KKK member. So I had to have a white officer introduced into the mix posing as Ron Stallworth. So I got an undercover narcotics detective friend of mine — in the book, he's identified as Chuck, that's not his real name — but I had Chuck pose as me. And for the initial meeting, I gave him any identification that I had minus a photograph, so that if they should question him about being me he could pull those out and, you know, convince them. And it worked. We did this for seven and a half months.
On the Klan organizer he and his partner interacted with
Ken O'dell, the local organizer that I answered the initial phone call with, he was a soldier at Fort Carson, Colo., about 5' 9", stocky. He was not — none of these guys were, as I say in my book, the brightest light bulbs in the socket. Because if they were, they would have known that they were talking to two different people — one on the phone and one in person — because my voice and Chuck's voice sound nothing alike. But they never picked up on it in seven and a half months of phone conversations and periodic face-to-face meetings with Chuck.
On meeting then-KKK leader David Duke and receiving the Klan handshake from him
snip
I met David Duke and introduced myself without giving him my name. I simply said, "I am a detective with the Colorado Springs Police Department." And then I told him, "I don't believe in your philosophy or your political ideology, but I am a professional and I will do everything within my means to ensure your safety while you're in my city."
He was very cordial. He shook my hand. He gave me the Klan handshake — he didn't know that I knew it was the Klan handshake, but he did give it to me. If you shake a person's hand and you extend your index and middle finger along their wrist and as you're pumping their hand you start pressing your fingers in their wrist area, it's the Klan handshake.
Read More:https://www.npr.org/2018/06/09/618280396/how-a-black-detective-infiltrated-the-kkk
Background for the movie.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The book came out around the time of his show series 
Representing the best of Pensacola, Mr. Ron Stallworth!
