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SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: The True Story of BlacKkKlansman · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to the Summer Movie Playlist, the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: place where we grouped some fun movie content because the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: summer movie season. We thought you might like this, so
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we gave it a shot, and today you're going to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: be listening to the replay of our episode on Black Clansman,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the true story behind that movie. It's a great movie.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Love it, love Spike Lee, and this is a great one.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoy the show.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Charles Bryant, there's Jerry over there. You put the three
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: of us together. It's movie crush. I mean stuff you
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: should know.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: This does have some stank on it doesn't it. It's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a movie stank.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I know your game is cool.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't even ask you have you seen Black clans
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I I was.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Like, I can't. I can't do this episode without having
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: seen it. So I watched it last night.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Oh nice, Yeah good?
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Huh Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. Like I like his
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: choice at the end, like just completely pull a somersault
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: on the viewer.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Oh sure with that last bet.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Like spoiler alert there's an end spoilery, Yeah, for sure,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: we should probably say that out of the gate. If
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: you haven't seen this yet and you don't want it
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: to be spoiled, don't listen to this episode first. Yes,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I guess now that we've said that, we
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: can speak freely. Right.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, So.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: The if, if the entire movie was basically to disarm
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: you up to the end, then I think it's one
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: And even if it wasn't, that wasn't the entire point
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: of the movie. It was still it was still great.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: And how he pulled it out at the end, I think.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well this was I don't know if you remember,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: but this is the movie I saw in Perth, Australia. Ye,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that happens at the end, that big, you know, sort
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of gut punch of realism at the end, And I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: stood up and I was like, hmm, Like, wonder what
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: they're thinking here in Perth.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: They probably think of what just happened? What's wrong with America?
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going, I my good to see you.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not American.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Canadian. Can't you tell bloke?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness? Yeah? It was. It was one of those
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: things where I was like, I'm kind of slightly embarrassed
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I like that.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed the movie though I thought to see Spike Lee,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: who just he's one of my favorite filmmakers in his sixties,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: still just bringing the juice like this. I loved it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I also loved that it was controversial too, in
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: that like some people criticize Spike Lee for like not
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: going far enough or maybe kind of glossing over some
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: of the ugly aspects of the story.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to get to that at the end, maybe.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure. But we'll give it a pre
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: mention shout out, which is what we just did.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Right, So we are talking about the true story of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the film Black Clansman, Spike Lee's movie that won the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Grand Prize at the con Film Festival. It's nominated for
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Academy Awards.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, three Oscars, I believe for including Best.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Picture, Yeah, I think Picture Director, and.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Supporting Actor for who I would guess Adam Driver. I
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: didn't see really. Yeah, I was surprised because Denzel's son
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: did a wonderful job as well.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: He loves he loves that being known as that right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I can't remember his first name, but you know, Denzel's son.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: He was like. There were several times when he was
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: talking and I was like, oh, you are definitely Denzel
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Washington's son man, just the way he talked, the sound
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: of his voice. But also is acting too, he's a
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: good actor.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so all right, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Adam Driver, Best Director, and Best Original Music Score.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Oh nice, but yeah he is.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't know he was Denzel Sun till after the movie.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I could see that.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And he was a football player, do you know that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: I didn't who he played for.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He played for Morehouse here in Atlanta. He was a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: running back and then played an NFL on the practice
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: squad for the Rams, and then eventually played a few
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: years in NFL Europe and the UFL until he hung
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: up his cleats six years ago.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Oh that's cool. Yeah, playing football in Europe has got
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: to be a surreal experience.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a soccer ball.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Everyone's like, what are you doing? This is all wrong?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: All right? So should we way back into the nineteen seventies,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the groovy seventies of Denver, Colorado.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: First we should say his name is John David Washington.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Oh sure you were kidding, Denzel Son. Yes, so yeah,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: let's get in the way back machine and see go
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: inspect their terrible low quality pot.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So Ron Stalworth is the true to life character's name
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: who There was a football player growing when we were
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: growing up named John Stalworth. So I'm always wanting to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: say John Stalworth.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: This is not him. This is a cop named Ron Stalworth,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: that's right.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And he had a few designations that are pretty important.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: He was the first African American police officer to work
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: for the Colorado Springs Police Department, which he joined as
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a cadet at the age of nineteen. Yeah, in seventy two,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of years later on his twenty
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: first birthday. On his twenty first.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Birthday, that's what I saw he had June eighteenth.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I believe nice was sworn in as a full on
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: officer of the law.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Right, And I'm not sure if like they just swear
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: you in on your twenty first birthday or if it
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: just so happened. That's all right in ceremony was on
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: his twenty first birthday, but wardless, it was a big deal.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: He's the first African American cop and then later on
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: detective for Colorado Spring. So that's a big deal, especially
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: starting out at age twenty one too. That takes a
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: lot of cajones as they call it in Colorado.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: No, I think they call those rocky Mountain oysters.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: That's right, that is what they call him for sure.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So he worked undercover for about thirty years long, great
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: careers and undercover detective. But it was this case which
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: only came out about four years ago when he wrote
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a book about it about his career when he went
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: undercover as a well as a klansman. But it's a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: little more complicated than that.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: It was a very complicated operation, right.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And this wasn't something that like, I mean, he
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: even says in this NPR interview that he didn't. It
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was just a job at that particular point in time.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And when that particular job ended, that is the undercover,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: which was about what eight or nine months, I moved
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: on to something else and it just happened by circumstance.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So he didn't come in there with a bone to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: pick with the Klan, aside from probably every bone to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: pick that he had with the Klan, right, just as
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a black man in America.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and it would probably help to give a
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: little background on the Klan at the time, because you know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the Klan was very well known for being really big
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: and really violent at over three waves is basically how
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the clan history is divided. Yeah, Like the first wave
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: was when they were they were founded in the wake
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: of the Civil War. Then they had the second wave
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: came around the nineteen teens, like nineteen fifty fifteen, I
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: mean that era, and then they had another big resurgence
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: during the Civil Rights era in the fifties and sixties.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: But you know, in between these waves and after that
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: third wave, it's not like the Clan just went away.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: They kept on. Their profile was lower and maybe there
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: the public violence or terrorism that they were engaging in
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: wasn't quite as pronounced, but they were still there. And
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: in Colorado in particular, they had a really long history
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: with the Klan, where basically the city of Denver was
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: in under the control of the Klan back in the twenties,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: just you know, fifty years before Ron Stalwart started working there.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was when he got hired there, he
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: got access to files like secret FBI files, right, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he got to go in and dig in and look
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: at the history of the clan in Colorado, and boy,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: like you ain't kidding. They were in the House of Representatives.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: There were senators.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Both senators were clans members.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The Mayor Benjamin Stapleton, who the airport was named after
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: until ninety five.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, his great grandson ran for governor on the GOP
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: ticket this past election and lost to who is Colorado's
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: first ever openly gay Jewish governor.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, Colorado is a weird state.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: It is an odd state for a.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Lot of different ideologies all packed in together.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: It's very purple in all sorts of ways.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So Mayor Benjamin Stapleton was a clan member. The
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: governor Clarence Morley was a clan member. The chief of police,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: which is I mean, you don't want anyone in these
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: positions to be clan members, but I imagine the chief
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of police is one of the more problematic areas to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: have a person in that kind of control.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Particularly that one too. He was basically he was picked
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: by the clan, the Colorado Clan, and basically foisted on
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Benjamin Stapleton, who who was even like, wow, this guy's
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: even too much for my tastes and eventually fired him.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: But like the clan picked the chief of police of Denver,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Colorado back in the twenties.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And they tried to recall Stapleton at one point.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It didn't work, and when that effort failed, the Klan
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: burned across on the top of Table Mountain as a celebration,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a show of public celebration.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Right, So the clan has deep roots and an old
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: story in Colorado, or at least they used to, and
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: they were still very much around when ron Stalworth started
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: as his investigation or started as the first black detective
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: in Colorado Springs, right, that's right. And so he started
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: out I guess, his kind of playing clothes and was
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: assigned undercover work pretty quickly just by his just by
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: being the only African American officer in the police force.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Because Stokely Carmichael came to town once.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: That's right. And this is in the film. We're going
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about a few differences between the movie and
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the real story. But he did, in fact go to
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a speech in a rally by famous black panther Stokely Carmichael,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and he was, you know, fully kitted out in his
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: bell bottoms, and his wearing a wire, he picked his
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: afro out, and he in fact did make a point
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to meet him, just like he did in the film,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and Carmichael did apparently say arm yourself and get ready
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: because the revolution is coming. And I imagine Stalworth had
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: some mixed feelings about that assignment.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would guess. So it's kind of like, I
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: don't really have any idea of what he personally was
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: like because the movie mixed things up so much, in
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: like added layers that weren't necessarily there. So I have
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: no idea what that experience would have been like for him,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing we do know is not true is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the character in the film of Patrese whom he meets
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: at that rally, young woman that he falls in love with.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: She was made up for the movie. Spike Lee wanted
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a love interest basically and to represent sort of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: female black Power movement as a whole, So she was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: completely made up. But she was terrific in the film.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Laura harri Or she's in the New Spider Man
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: movies too.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: She's awesome, cool, the New Spider Verse movie.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: No No, No, that's animated.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, Well, she could have been.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: A voice actor. I guess right, Yeah, No, she's in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the one the New Ones with the New the New Kid.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, the New Spider Kid, the Current Spider Man.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Current Spider Man, which is great. Those are good movies.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen any of them.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You're not super into that stuff, though, were you.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Well? I saw The Infinity War when he was in that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, he's a bit of a smart alec. Frankly,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: he is.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So okay. He does his research on the deep roots
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: of the clan in Colorado, he goes under cover, and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: then I don't think he was even assigned this thing.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I think he came up with it on his own,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: by chance, almost in October nineteen seventy eight. He was
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: twenty five at this point, and he was looking through
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the local paper.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Well that was part of his assignment, to gather intelligence
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: by reading the paper.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Well, right, but I don't think I think this was
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: his idea to go undercover like this.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: That's the impression I have too.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: He seemed like a self starter in a lot of ways.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: So he found this ad, a classified ad in the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: paper for the Klan said get in touch if you
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: want further information. He sent a letter posing as a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: white racist to a po box, just thinking that he
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: would just get back some pamphlets or something. So he
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: signed his real name, which is he didn't really think
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that went through.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: No, he didn't, and he never really fully explained it
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: aside from the best explanation I saw is that he
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: didn't think anything was going to come of it. He
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: thought he'd get, like you said, a couple of pamphlets
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: and that would be that. And he just wasn't planning
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: to create like a large investigation out of making contact
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: through this ad. And again we should probably state this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: It was an ad in the paper for the clan
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: to get in touch with the clan, to get more
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: info about the clan and maybe you might want to join.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Who knows? Right? So he makes contact with him by
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: sending off a letter. And if you ask me, if
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Spike Lee were directing this episode, he would put an
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: ad break right here.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: That was good.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Who are we to disagree?
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: All right, we'll be right back, Okay.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: So, like we said, ron Stalworth is thumbing through the newspaper.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: He mails off a letter to get more info about
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: the Klan, and he uses his real name, and like
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: you said, Chuck. He was expecting like a pamphlet or
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: something in return, like so you want to be a
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: clan member or something like that, right, Instead, about two
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: weeks later, he got a call from the number. So
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: he used everything as far as the undercover operation would go.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: He used all of his undercover info except for his name.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: So he got a call in his undercover phone line
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: from a guy named Ken O'Dell and he was pretty
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: surprised to get this call because again he was expecting
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: a pamphlet and instead he had a real, live, living,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: breathing Ku Klux Klansman on the other end of the
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: line saying, Hey, I got your letter about hating black
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: people and other minorities. Let's talk.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like, why are you interested? And Stalwarth
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: immediately just kind of goes into character, and I guess
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that's what you You know, when you're undercover, you you
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: got to be part improv actor to be able to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: pull that off.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Well. He also he said he drew from his own
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: personal experiences because he grew up in El Paso and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: encountered a lot of racism there, and I'm sure on
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: the force in Colorado Springs too, So he drew from
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: his own experience as well.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he basically right out of the gate says, well,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you know, my sister's dating a black man, and every
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: time he puts his hands on her, on her pure
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: white body, I cringe and I want to do something
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: about it. And Ken O'Dell says, you sound like a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: great guy once you come on down and let's meet,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: because you are just the kind of kind of dude
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: we're looking for.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: You sound like real clam material. Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I thought about maybe doing an episode on The Klan.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: I thought about that too, and then I'm like, do
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: you want to give him a platform?
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But then I thought, or you know, you could
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: just talk about it and how stupid they are all
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: right like it when I was a kid. I mean,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of course, being in Georgia, that stuff was around. I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: never like saw it firsthand, obviously, Yeah, but you heard
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: things even like growing up in the seventies in Georgia,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and I was always so scared of the whole thing
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: because of the outfits and everything and the fire. And
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I was a good little Baptist boy, so there was
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of fear. But then I got a little
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: older and I was like, they're just dumb rednecks wearing sheets, right,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: sort of demystified it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: It's the moment you become an adult.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, of course then I would later
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: learn that they did real horrific things and took lives
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and you know, or a terrorist organization.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, but I think what you're saying is
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: they made themselves up to be boogeymen. Yeah, exactly, And
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: they definitely can be that way, especially in the young
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: mind or something like that.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: But sure.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So back to the story. Sorry, ron Stalworth is
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: on the phone with this guy named Ken O'Dell who
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: wants to meet him to see if he'd like to
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: join the Klan. And this is a big problem because
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I think, as we mentioned a couple of times, ron
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Stalworth was African American.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, oh boy, what do I do here?
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Right? So he actually recruited a fellow detective who he
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: in his book calls Chuck. That's all he's ever publicly
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: referred to the guy as is Chuck Waite. Was it you, Chuck?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: It was not me that gentleman is I guess either
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: still undercover or just never wanted his identity out there, right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So he yeah, he may still live in Colorado Springs.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Who knows.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's on a case right now for all I know.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: But so this Chuck guy, he's he was recruited by
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Ron Stalwarts, who play Ron Stalworth to the Klan because
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Chuck was white. He was already an undercover narcotics agent
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: and apparently he was friendly enough with Ron Stalwart to say, yes,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: I will, I will join this investigation, buddy, let's do it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And here's the thing, though, he was this wasn't
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: his primary case. So Chuck is undercover on a lot
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of different assignments, so he's not around as much as
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Stalwarts needs him. So, like in the movie, most of
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: this stuff is done over the phone. Like, he spends
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in this investigation on the phone
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: speaking to these clansmen who think that he's a white man,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and when they needed to meet, he would send Chuck
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: in who And we'll get to the voice part in
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a minute, because that's when I was watching the movie,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, did none of these dummies not realize
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that they don't sound anything alike?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: You know, because they've been talking to him on the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: phone at length, but they had they had their first meeting.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: They they got together and I believe they met. They
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: met somewhere at first and then went to a bar
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: after like as the second part of that meeting.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they met it it can be. So the movie
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: supposedly portrays this realistically. They this Chuck guy who is
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: portraying Ron Stalwarts to the Klan. They met at a
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: convenience store and he was said he was told to
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: get in the car and then they drove to a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: second location. And that's scary stuff. And also he's also
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: wearing a wire at the time. Like that's something that
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: that the movie kind of gets across, but especially in
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: like articles about the story don't necessarily dive into this
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Chuck cat was like putting himself out there.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Oh sure, as every undercover detective does.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Right. So, I mean Ron Stalworth is conducting this investigation,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: he's the mastermind of He's leading this whole thing. But
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: this poor Chuck guy has to go hang out with
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: these you know, violent clans members or clan members on
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: you know, like fairly frequently from what I understand. So
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: hats off to him.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean it was it was definitely
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: like it required both of their best efforts. To get
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: away with us for that long, right, it was quite
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the ruse. So Chuck meets with them, eventually earns their
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: trust a long way the phone work of Stalworth, and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: then he actually gets successfully admitted about two months later
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and got his little I guess you get a little
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: membership card.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: He still has it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He does. He did not throw it away like in
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the movie. He has it framed in fact, and on
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the back of the card were six codes of conduct,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: one of which said, never discuss any clan affairs with
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: any plain clothes officer on a state, local, or national level.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So, there is a lot of comedy in the movie
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, I mean, it's it's a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: serious thing that they're doing. But there are a lot
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of laughs as well.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: A lot of laughs and a lot of like movie
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: formula steps that Spike Lee purposely follows, you know, very
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: faithfully too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So there's a big point
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: there that we left out of the Chucks. So to
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: get that membership card, supposedly, again, as they say in Colorado,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: the oysters on this guy his he had so so
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: he met so fake Ron saw with Chuck met with
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the Klan, impressed them enough between Ron, the real Ron
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Stalwarts phone calls, and Chuck's whatever Chuck was saying in person.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: All this combined made the Colorado Springs Clan members say, Okay,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: we like you, we want you to be a member.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Fill out this application and we'll send it off to
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: the national director of again the Klan. We should say,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know if we've ever said this. The Klan
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: calls itself the organization rather than the clan, so they
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: and the guy who ran the thing. I don't know
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: if he still runs it or not, but he definitely
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: did at this time during this investigation is a guy
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: named David Duke, who if you grew up in the
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: eighties or I think even the nineties, you were probably
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: pretty familiar with David Duke. I believe he ran for
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: president once, didn't he?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean he was, wasn't he the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: governor of Louisiana?
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: I don't Maybe that's what it is. Maybe he ran
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: for that. But he was the grand Wizard of the
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Ku Klux Klan, and he he was trying to make
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: it a more political organization, less of a terrorist organization
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: and more of a political organization. Under his guidance, but
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: it was still the Ku Klux Klan. Like, there was
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: still plenty of times when he was wearing robes and
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: stuff he just never did in public. So during this
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: time he was the national director, the Grand Wizard of
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: the Klan. And when ron Stalworth didn't get his application
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: pushed through fast enough, he picked up the phone and
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: called the national headquarters and ended up talking with David
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Duke and saying like, Hey, my application is taking a while.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Is there anything you can do about it? And this
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: kicked off like what ron Stalwart would later characterize in
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a weird way as a friendship between him, a black
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: undercover detective in Colorado, and David Duke, the Grand Wizard
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, I don't want to get
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: angry emails from David Duke supporters.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Uh huh.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: He was a Republican Louisiana State rep. He was not governor,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: but I think he ran for some high off. Oh
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: he did. He ran. He was a candidate for the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Democratic presidential primaries in the late eighties and then the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Republican primaries in ninety two.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: He ran as a Democrat and then a I could
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: see that solid South kind of thing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think he ran for state Senate and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: lost US Senate and lost US House and loss and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: he did run for governor of Louisiana but he lost. Gotcha, Okay,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And you maybe if you're if you didn't grow up
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, you may have heard his name more
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: recently because he fully endorsed Donald Trump's campaign and after
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump won, this was his quote on Twitter. Make
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: no mistake, our people have played a huge role in
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: electing Trump. So he was he was in the news
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: again more recently.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Well, he was also in Charlottesville, if not leading the
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: rally to Unite the Right, definitely a big speaker at it,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: a big part of it. And Spike Lee uses some
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: of his footage from that rally to kind of get
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: across that you know, this stuff is still going on.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: This isn't from the seventies or earlier.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: How great was for Grace.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: He was wonderful.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: He was so good and he looks a lot like
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: David Duke in the seventies.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: He really does. Unfortunately for him the stash in the
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: three piece suits and all that. So yeah, he did
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: a good job, but so so yeah. In the movie
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: to for Grace from that seventies show. Always he will
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: always be from that seventies show. Yeah, he plays what
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: do you want me to say? Like he had a
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: bit part in Ocean's eleven or something. Brad Pitt's character
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: was teaching him to play poker.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I think I got about that.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: You know that guy.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: No, he's that seventy show of course.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: So so he he plays David Duke in the in
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: the movie and there this, this is, this is it's
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: really funny, like Spike Lee added stuff that just you
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: would think like, well, yeah, of course it's totally believable,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: like Chuck being Jewish in real life, right, and he
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: actually wasn't. That's fabricated by the movie. So you would
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: just not even think twice about that. But it turns
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: out that's not true. The stuff that seems the least
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: true was actually the stuff that actually happened, and for
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: a very long time, at the very least. Over the
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: course of this nine month investigation, there were multiple phone
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: calls that were very cordial and friendly where ron Stalworth
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: would call David Duke, imposing as a White Clam member
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: and pumping from information. They would talk about, you know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: David Duke's family and like, just have normal conversations that
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: would inevitably turn back to racism and the weakening of
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the white race at the hands of you know, the
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Jewish media and all the minorities who are taking over,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: and so it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I think in the book in an interviews where if
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: pleasant person to talk to, and that's where that weird
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: those conversations.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But there is like he couldn't make this stuff up,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, exactly.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: But there is at least one video of David Duke
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: basically admitting that, yes, this he had conversations with this guy.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: He tries to downplay it, sure, but he does basically
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: verify that, yes, that's true, that really happened.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Well, and Duke's probably like I can't remember every phone
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: call I had with every random racist over the years, right,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of them. Even the skuy Posing
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: is one. All right, well, let's take another break and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go. We're going to talk a little bit
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: more about this weird David Duke relationship right after this.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: All right, so he's budding up with David Duke on
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the phone. He's fooling everybody, and he even like you
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: get the sense that he does have a little bit
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of sense of humor Stalworth, because at one point he
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: even goaded him on the phone a little bit. And
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: this is in the movie and it was totally true.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He said, you know, mister Duke, have you ever worried
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: about like a black man posing as a white man
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and infiltrating your organization? And Duke said no. And he said,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and this is from the NPR interview with Stalworth, he said,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I can tell you're white because you don't talk like
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a black man. He said, you talk like a very smart,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: intellectual white man. And I can tell by the way
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you pronounce certain words. And he said, you know, give
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: me an example, and he said, black people tend to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: pronounce the word are ara. And I can tell by
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: listening to you that you're not black, because you do
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: not pronounce that word in that manner.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: It's science case closed.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, he was so easily duped. I love it. Uh.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And then they also did in fact meet in person.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That part is true as well. Duke came to town and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: was having lunch. It was not a big ceremony like
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: in the movie, but he came to town to have
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: lunch and the department assigned Stalwarth to protect him, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: so he goes there to the restaurant, introduces himself to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: protect him. Duke says, all right, I appreciate you them,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you know, sending someone my way. And Chuck is undercover
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: there as well, and he does, in fact, Stalworth pose
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: with David Duke and gets a polaroid with him.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: So this sounded to me like what what was the
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: what was going on here? Like, I mean, like, you've
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: got this investigation going this is this takes place during
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: this this undercover investigation that Stalwart's conducting. You have a
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: guy who's already like putting himself out there, Chuck, as
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: as the white Ron Stalworth. And then the chief says, oh, yes,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: by the way, you the only African American police officer
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: in our entire squad. You go be David Duke's bodyguard
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: for the day while he's in town in Colorado Springs.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Like that was just bizarre. And not only do it
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: do that that that very like obvious over act slapping
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: the face to David Duke, which is great, but if
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: it but it could have jeopardized like this whole, this
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: whole thing, because you also you had the guy portraying
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Ron Stalworth in the same room at the same lunch.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: It just seemed really strange. And again that was one
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: of those things where when you watch the movie you
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: would think like, well, that's just made up. No, that
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: actually took place, at least according to Ron Stalworth's memoirs,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: and that that that Chuck was in the room was
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: asked to take a picture by Ron Stalworth with David
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Duke and the Grand Dragon I guess who must be
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: like the head of the state in Colorado. And then
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: the last second, when he was counting down, he put
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: his arms around the shoulders of the two clan guys
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: and then got his hands on the picture. Apparently all
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: of that was the case, but he's since lost the picture.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Duke really did try to get it back,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and Stalwarth like got to it quicker and said basically
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: like if you try to take this thing, I will
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: have you arrested for assaulting a police officer. Right, don't
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: do it. Don't think about.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: It, all right, so he said he lost it in
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: a move he wished he had taken better care of it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: But the idea that it was like that's just so nuts.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: It tells you a lot about the investigation though to me,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: like it makes you say, like, okay, how seriously were
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: they taking this investigation at the time. If Stalwarth later
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: said all right, this is this is just you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: this is just another job to me. When I started it,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I did the job, and then when it was done,
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I moved on to another job. The fact that he
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: didn't talk about it much until I think he spoke
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: about it to the press once in two thousand and
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: six a Desert News article, and then didn't talk about
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: it again until twenty fourteen when his memoirs came out.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: It was just like a thing that they were doing
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: that other people were doing other stuff too. And then
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: to have like that part of it that the idea
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: that you would you would jeopardize it in that way
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: just makes it seem like they weren't taking it as
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: that big of an operations as like the movie would
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: like to believe. I'm not sure.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I think in real life it was it was
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: a information gathering investigation. Like, it was never we're going
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to take down the clan in Colorado. It was let's
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: infiltrate and get as much information in fact finding as
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: we can. And in the end, after eight months, that's
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: kind of what happened. It was he considers Stalwart, considers
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it a success, and that they fulfill their mission. They
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight month
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: span or at nine month span, and they did identify
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: clan members who worked at Noorad who apparently they said they,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I mean these days they would be fired probably, but
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: they said they reassigned them to like Greenland or something.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Right because they had access to the too nuclear weapons.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Apparently they had very high level clearance at noor Ad,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: which is scary.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: And then they also found plans that they didn't act on,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: like the whole bomb plot in the movie was made
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: up for dramatic purposes, but they did find links between
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: for a plan to bomb a gay nightclub and another
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: plan to steal automatic weapons from an army base, like
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: an inside job. So it was, you know, it was
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: valuable work they were doing, for sure. It just wasn't
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like we're going to take the clan down like I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: don't think it was the department's big, big job at
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: No, certainly not. And in the memoirs and in the
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: movie too, the reason that's given for the undercover operation
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: to end is because it started to become successful. Ron
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Stalwarth was nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: the Klan. Like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: my job. Everybody likes you. You're really good at this,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: You're smart. You should lead the clan here and the
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: police chief of Colorado Springs. So that's it. Close it down,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: worried about what a pr nightmare it would be if
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: it got out that some of his detectives were in
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: the Colorado Springs Clan. But at the same time, what
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: strikes me is odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez,
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Springs Clan. He's talking to David Duke like, really, this
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: could not be kind of blown up into a larger
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: investigation or a larger staying or something like that. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: then secondly, and ron Stalworth himself addresses this, there's a
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: very frequently a criticism of well, if this was such
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: a big operation and they found all this stuff, why
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests? And Duke says, right,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: not just David Duke. Stalwarth says also that in law
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: enforcement too, people question that, like why wasn't anyone arrested?
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: And he said, it was an intel investigation and that's
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: what they did, is they gathered stuff. But then he
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: very rightly points out, like you said, like the fact
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: that they prevented crossburnings alone makes it a worthwhile and
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: valuable operation. I think just some people on the outside
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: are saying, well, why wasn't why wasn't more done? Why
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: didn't Moore come out of this? You know? Well, and
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure what they're driving at, but there
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: are you know, Stalwart brings that up in an interview
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: I read with him like that people do ask that
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: and wonder about that.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Stalwarth is very proud of the fact that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: with the cross burnings, he was like, no, I can't
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: remember the quote, but he said something about no children
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in Colorado Springs got to you know, no young black
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: kids had to see crosses on fire during that eight
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: or nine month period, and I'm very proud of that,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: as he should be.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for real.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So I mentioned the voice earlier, in the fact that
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: he had a different voice obviously than Chuck, and he
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: said one time, only one time, and I think this
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: was in the movie, wasn't it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: It was? Actually no, it was I remember.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So one time in the whole investigation did someone
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: say like, wait a minute, you sound different. Chuck had
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: just been at a in person meeting, came back and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: then Stalworth wants to follow up on the phone with
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Ken O'Dell about something right afterward. So he had just
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: heard Chuck's voice for whatever this whole meeting and was
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: talking to him and he was like, wait a minute,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: you sound different, what's going on? And he just pulled
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it off. He coughed and said he had a sinus infection,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and Ken O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: clear that up, and gave some good sinus medication advice.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, they definitely appeared in the movie.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could not make this thing up, you know,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: it's crazy.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: No, for real, And apparently for a long time, Stalworth
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: was saying like, yeah, it was just another job. It
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: was just another operation. I guess he told some fellow
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: like law enforcement friends or whatever about it, and they're like, dude,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: you this is a movie. You need to write this down,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: you need to get this out there. This is a
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: one in a million story. Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation wise
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: like he's the voice, but they're sending a white man
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: like it's I'm surprised he pulled it off for that long.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I could totally see that.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: One final thing that did not happen in real life
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but did happen in the movie. And this is what
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: when you usually will change real life is to get
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a more satisfying ending. But Stalwart did not, unfortunately, reveal
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: his true identity to David Duke like he does to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: hilarious effect in the film. Unfortunately. No, I'll see that.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: He was saying, like, yeah, he just he didn't really
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: talk about it until the two thousands, So David Duke
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: didn't know until I guess the memoirs came out.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, well, I guess we should talk
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: about Spike Lee getting criticized Boots Riley, director who I
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: had a movie crush.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: By the way, he I know what was his movie?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Sorry to Bother You? Was his film that he made.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: No, I mean his pick for movie crush.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: His pick was a movie called Mishima, A Life in
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: four Chapters. Okay, yeah, it was a great film and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: his like, his knowledge on movies was deep. He turned
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: me onto a lot of cool things.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: I thought it for a very terrible second you were
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: saying his pick was his own movie.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: No no, But he you know, Boots does not hold
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: back on what he thinks. And while you would think
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that he would be like, oh no, I'm going to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: be a champion of Spike Lee and telling the story,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: he came out very publicly on Twitter and that very
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: intelligently criticized that he didn't just bag on it. He
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: wrote a big, long statement on exactly what he thought
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: was wrong with it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He basically said, look, man, if you take away
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: all the embellishments that Spike Lee added to this movie,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: what you have as a guy who's probably biggest assignment.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And I'm not sure where he got this, but he
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: focused on that stokely Carmichael thing and the fact that
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: ron Stalworth had worked undercover to infiltrate the Black Power
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked on
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: that for like three years, and that this clan thing
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: was just like a nine month thing. And he also
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: criticized Spike Lee for making it, making the movie seem
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: like law enforcement and the Black Power movement came together
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: to fight racism, right that like that was a larger point,
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: or that that was historically accurate or something like that.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: It was a really interesting It was like a three
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: page essay that he posted on Twitter that made some
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: good points. He basically said, from what I can tell,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: it looks like ron Stalworth was working for co intel Pro,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: which was the FBI's it was their program to undermine groups,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: including black power groups, which we mentioned it in the
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Black Panther episode we did, and co intel Pro definitely
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: deserves its own episode, and it was ended officially in
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one. But I think Boots Riley's point was
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: it might have been officially ended, but the work was
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: still going on, and if this guy was infiltrating Black
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Power like groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: trying to break them, up one way or another, probably
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: using co intel purposes or practices. And Ron stall Worth
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: he had a pretty great quote in response to it.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: He said, I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: response to Boots Riley and Spike Lee has no comment
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: about it whatsoever. So who knows. But you make a
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: good point that like he's he's he's not just giving
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: like blind allegiance to anything.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Sure. Well, Spike did comment eventually.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Oh I didn't see that.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was. He was in an interview, and the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: first thing he said was like, Hey, I'm a I'm
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: a young man of sixty one or something like that,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, young me might have kind of
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: gotten into a war of words, but he's just not
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: into that anymore. But he did say briefly something about, listen,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to come out and say that all
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: cops are racist and all cops do bad things, because
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: they don't all do bad things. There's a lot of
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: great cops. There's also bad cops. And he kind of
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: just couched it in that and then was like, but
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to be really talking about
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: this anymore.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I hadn't seen that he'd even had that comment. Yeah,
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: so it's interesting stuff and it's a good movie at
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: the very least.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: You know, I think I think ron Staal wars Like man,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: they made a movie about my story. That's pretty awesome,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: and at the very least it's a pretty great movie.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: How about that? Totally, totally, So if you you got anything.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Else, I got nothing else.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: If you want to know more about Black Clansmen, you
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: should probably go see that movie. And I guess we
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: probably should have said at the outset this episode is
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: not an ad.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, of course not.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: We just like the movie a lot, right.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you could say it's an ad, but like,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: no one gave us money or asked us to do this. Sure, Okay,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I'm endorsing it.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it as well.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: It has two thumbs up, as it were. Yeah, rest
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: in peace, Roger Ebert and Jeene Ciskel two thumbs Okay.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: So if I already already said that, how about some
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: listener mail.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna call this ping pong response from a
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: former pro Nice, Hey, guys, want to commend you on
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: the job you did covering a sport that you didn't
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: have an extensive knowledge of. I'm a professional table tennis
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: coach and former player. I started playing in college. Thought
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I was really good until I was coerced to go
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: to a tournament at Princeton University about twenty years ago
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and I got destroyed. I didn't like that, so I
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: saw it out to coach and the rest is history.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: You guys clearly did a lot of research and to
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: highlight the things that most novice players aren't aware of.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But there were a few things I couldn't help but
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: point out. Josh, you mentioned the components of the modern racket.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: You said the pimpled sign those are called pips are
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: for spinning the ball, that the smooth side is for
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: defensive play. But the opposite is actually true. Oh no,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't catch that, because I would have pointed that out.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I thought everyone knew that.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: You get good spin on that smooth side, all right,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: for real? Oh yeah, yeah, it's grippy, all right? He said.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: The smooth side is very tacky, as in sticky, and that,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: combined with the sponge underneath, allows the ball to sink
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: in just enough so that the TACKI service grips the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: ball and generates a lot of spin. Also, you can
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: really have any combination of rubber that you want as
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: long as it's ITTF approved. Players are not restricted to
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: having one smooth side and one with pips, but one
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: side does have to be read and the other black.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Most defensive players use pips on their backhand because pips
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: vary the spin that is coming back at you and
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: it's very hard to read. Also, Chuck, you mentioned that
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: defensive players are called chislers. They're actually called choppers as
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: they chop the ball back with varying backspin. I've never
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: heard the term chiselers. I'm wondering if it is extremely outdated.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe I bet you that was the Gates I haead
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Old research chizlas.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: That's what they call in the twenties.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: He said, if you guys are ever in the Dunnellen,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: New Jersey area, stop by. We are there right now,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: stop by the Lily Yip Table Tennis Club and I'll
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: gladly hook you guys up with the lesson.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: I will gladly humiliate you in person.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And that is Thomas from Philly.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Thanks Thomas, much appreciated. We like it when we are
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: gently corrected because we like to be right, so thanks
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: for that. If you want to get in touch with us,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: let us know I don't know something we got wrong
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: about black clansmen. Let us know. You can find all
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: of our social links on stuffishould Know dot com and
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: has always sent us an email to stuff podcast at
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com