El Paso, TX (KFOX14/CBS4) — Ron Stallworth, the Blackkklansmen himself, is now being recognized in El Paso as the legend he is.
Stallworth, who joined the Ku Klux Klan as part of an undercover investigation while working at the Colorado Springs Police Department, was recently inducted into the El Paso Black Hall of Fame.
The is Ron Stallworth’s official Ku Klux Klan membership card from when he infiltrated KKK. (KFOX14/CBS4)
Stallworth said his investigation undercut the Klan’s beliefs about white supremacy and how its members viewed people of color. “This whole investigation destroyed the myth that they believe of white supremacy, and they’re the master race,” Stallworth said. He said the Klan viewed “blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, etc., dark skinned people” as “mud people,” and claimed they believed those groups had “the basic intelligence of an ape, a chimpanzee.”
Stallworth said he took particular pride in the contrast between his background and that of former Klan leader David Duke. “My investigation completely destroyed that because I was making fools out of them. And I only had a high school diploma at the time. David Duke had a master’s degree. But I’m making a fool out of this man,” Stallworth said.
The is the back of Ron Stallworth’s official Ku Klux Klan membership card from when he infiltrated KKK. It has the KKK’s core beliefs on it. (KFOX14/CBS4)
He also explained how he never manipulated his voice in any way to carry out the operation. “I always used my voice, yeah. I never changed my voice for any reason,” Stallworth said. He said Klan members heard the same voice on phone calls and in person, and called it a misconception that he altered it. “There’s a misconception. And in part, the movie studio and the promo video, the theater release, they promote the fact that I altered my voice. That never happened,” he said, adding that it would require “a perfect mimic like Eddie Murphy or somebody,” to carry out an entire sting operation under a different voice without getting caught.
Stallworth described undercover work as a form of acting, saying he used the language and mannerisms of white supremacists to maintain his cover. “All undercover work is is acting, pretending to be somebody you’re not,” he said. “So I used all the languages of hate. I did all the characteristics of what they say and do, mannerisms when I did all this stuff because I was pretending to be one of them.” He added, “So it wasn’t hard for me to use the so-called N-word, which I hate.”
Asked about how today’s political climate compares with what he witnessed, Stallworth said, “It’s worse. Controlling the border,” he said Duke had advocated a plan to place “armed Klansmen with rifles with scopes along the Tijuana border and along the El Paso border,” and that “they were going to shoot, and I quote, any wetback trying to cross the Rio Grande.”
Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, infiltrated the Colorado Springs Ku Klux Klan in 1979. Born and raised in El Paso, Stallworth was recently inducted into the El Paso Black Hall of Fame. (KFOX14/CBS4)
Stallworth’s story is told in his book, “The Black Klansman,” which was adapted into a Spike Lee-directed film. Stallworth said about “85 to 90%” of the movie was accurate, while noting Lee “took his liberties now and there.”
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