Civil-Rights Activist, Ex-Klansman C.P. Ellis
November 08, 2005 12:00 AM
Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. Ellis has died at age 78. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions.
An Unlikely Friendship
A new documentary by Chapel Hill filmmaker Diane Bloom gives Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis an opportunity to tell their own story
by Jamie Sue Potorti
... In Bloom's documentary, the two, in separate interviews, recall their feelings the first time they met, at a Durham City Council meeting. "Blacks are taking over the city. They got the good jobs--and you're all sittin' here letting 'em do it," Ellis recalls shouting at the council, in a quote that summed up his resentment. "That's when I wanted to cut his head off," says Atwater, who remembers brandishing a pocketknife and charging through the crowd toward Ellis, the president of the local KKK chapter. A couple of friends held her back. "That's what they want you to do," they told her, and Atwater grudgingly put away the knife ...
Face to Face with Durham History
October 2, 2007
... Atwater, an activist for fair housing in Durham's black neighborhoods, and Ellis, a gas station owner who rose to the position of Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan, were enemies on different sides of the color line during Durham's civil rights-era desegregation struggles. Chosen as the co-chairs of a 10-day-long series of meetings to improve public education, the two discovered that their kids had many of the same problems in school. It was then that they realized that poverty was a common bond and that class had shaped their experiences far more significantly than race separated them. A deep friendship ensued, which led to a profound personal transformation for Ellis. He abandoned the Klan, took a job at Duke, and became a union organizer. He and Atwater remained close until his death ...
C. P. Ellis: "Why I Quit the Klan”
from
American Dreams: Lost and Found
by Studs Terkel
... I really began to get bitter. I didn’t know who to blame. I tried to find somebody. I began to blame it on black people. I had to hate somebody ... The natural person for me to hate would be black people, because my father before me was a member of the Klan ... I joined the Klan, went from member to chaplain, from chaplain to vice-president, from vice-president to president. The title is exalted Cyclops ... Here’s a guy who’s worked all his life and struggled all his life to be something, and here’s the moment to be something ... The majority of ‘em are low-income whites, people who really don’t have a part in something. They have been shut out as well as the blacks. Some are not very well educated either. Just like myself ... I will never forget some black lady I hated with a purple passion. Ann Atwater. Every time I’d go downtown, she’d be leadin’ a boycott ... I felt very big, yeah ... What happened? As a result of our fightin’ one another, the city council still had their way. They didn’t want to give up control to the blacks nor the Klan. They were usin’ us ... The same thing is happening in this country today. People are being used by those in control, those who have all the wealth ... I got a telephone call from the president of the state AFL-CIO. “We’d like to get some people together from all walks of life.” I said: “All walks of life? Who you talkin’ about?” He said: “Blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives, Klansmen, NAACP people” ... Ann Atwater was there ... I just forced myself to go in and sit down Some of the blacks stood up and say it’s white racism. I took all I could take. I asked for the floor and I cut loose ... Howard Clements, a black guy, stood up. He said: “I’m certainly glad C. P. Ellis come because he’s the most honest man here tonight.” I said: “What’s that nigger tryin’ to do?” ... The third night ... Howard Clements stood up and said: “I suggest we elect two co-chairpersons.” Joe Beckton, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, just as black as he can be, he nominated me. There was a reaction from some blacks. Nooo. And, of all things, they nominated Ann Atwater, that big old fat black gal that I just hated with a purple passion, as co-chairman ... It was impossible. How could I work with her? But after about two or three days, it was in our hands. We had to make it a success. This give me another sense of belongin’, a sense of pride. This helped this inferiority feelin’ I had ...
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