On Sept. 20, in the midst of first Block Break, students, faculty, and staff alike packed the Kathryn Mohrman Theater to hear Ron Stallworth — Colorado Springs’ first black cop and protagonist of Spike Lee’s latest blockbuster film, “BlacKkKlansman” — address the college and share his astonishing story.
With an opening address from student activist John-Henry Williams ’19 and questions from Dr. Paul Buckley and Jake Brendel ’12, reporter for KRCC, the night was a tremendous success, beginning and ending with standing ovations.
Stallworth’s 2014 memoir “The Black Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime” tells the story of his undercover investigation into the Ku Klux Klan as a detective in Colorado Springs in the 1970s. This summer, his story became a national sensation with the release of Spike Lee’s movie adaptation, “BlacKkKlansman.” Opening Aug. 10 to correspond with the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville, Va. rally, the movie has been hailed by critics as one of Lee’s best movies in recent memory. Since the film captured the attention of audiences across the country, Stallworth’s book has reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, rocketing him into the national spotlight.
Despite his newfound fame, Stallworth remains humble and rejects the ‘celebrity’ status he has recently accrued.
“I don’t consider myself a celebrity,” Stallworth told CC. “To me, I’m still that kid in El Paso, Texas. I’m still the 19-year-old guy that got hired by Colorado Springs Police Department and used to come up here [to CC] to write parking tickets to some of you all.”
Stallworth continued, saying he never expected his story to become part of a national conversation in any capacity, let alone a major blockbuster film.
“When you write a book, you don’t write with the intention of it becoming an award-winning anything,” Stallworth said. “You write out of the love of wanting to write and of having a story to tell that you feel needs to be told. I just felt the story needed to be told, so I told it. Never did I imagine . . . it would reach No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list . . . these things just fall into place.”
When asked in the interview about his intentions in joining the Colorado Springs’ Police Department and becoming the city’s first black cop and detective, Stallworth again said the work was “never a mission for [him].”
“I joined the police department for one reason and one reason only: I was making enough money to put myself through college and become a high school P.E. coach,” Stallworth said. “But two things ended up leading to change the course of my future. One: after a year of being on the job, I was making twice as much money as a college graduate in the teaching profession, and two… I was having too much fun as a cop, so I decided to stick with it, and I stuck with it for 32 years.”
Despite last Thursday being his first time formally on CC’s campus — besides writing the occasional parking ticket three decades prior — Stallworth was effortlessly comfortable on stage. In addition to being humble, he was relatable and honest, connecting immediately with the audience and holding everyone captive throughout his 90 minute interview.
“He was willing to say that our police state is corrupt, willing to say our political establishment is disgusting, and willing to admit that white supremacy is a huge building block of our society,” Williams said. “He blew away my expectations.”
Stallworth also skillfully wove humor into his stories, which he then masterfully concluded with profound lessons, epitomized by his retelling of his phone conversation with David Duke of the KKK nearly a month prior.
“David was concerned about how he was going to be portrayed in the movie, and he was basing all this on the trailer that had come out — the movie hadn’t been released yet,” Stallworth said, prompting laughter from the audience. He continued: “(Then) David said he’s not a bigot, and he said he’s not a white supremacist. When I pointed out that he endorsed Donald Trump for president, who is a bigot, a racist, and a white supremacist, he said ‘that’s not true, all Trump wants to do is promote white culture and white heritage.’ Then I pointed out there is no such thing as white culture and white heritage.”
While this first part of his retelling was greeted by sporadic laughs, applause and cheers, a hush fell over the room for Stallworth’s conclusion.
“Every time I pinned him on something, he would immediately pivot and move to another topic,” Stallworth said. “And that’s the danger when you deal with white supremacists. When you pin them on a topic, they don’t want to talk about, they will pivot and move to something else that they feel they can take advantage of. They’re very slick; David Duke is one of the slickest of all. He’s very dangerous.”
In addition to white supremacists, Stallworth also warned of the danger of “softening” the n-word by calling it such.
“I hate that term with a passion,” Stallworth said. “You cannot take a word that’s so disgusting, so disgraceful, so demeaning, and try to soften it up by saying ‘n-word.’ You simply cannot do it…the word has defined us as a people for centuries. That word was used to disgrace and diminish us as a race, as a people. Don’t try to soften that word with me. Say it for what it is…an ugly word.”
Throughout his talk, Stallworth addressed what he called “the duality of being a black cop,” where he was forced to straddle two worlds: being “too black for the white community and too blue for the black community…the white community doesn’t want to accept you because you’re too black, and your black brothers and sisters don’t want accept you because you’re…too blue; you’ve chosen to work for the oppressive white man.”
Stallworth went on to defend police across the country while also fully acknowledging that there are bad cops and that those cops need to be “eliminated.”
“I am a career police officer, retired. I love my brothers and sisters in blue where ever they may be. But one thing that I don’t abide—never did, never will—is…the so called blue wall of silence,” Stallworth said. “The reason you have bad cops and why they’re allowed to flourish and prevail and expand is because the blue wall of silence gets erected around them… If more cops were to stand up when a bad cop is residing in their midst…a lot of problems could be eliminated…when we find bad cops, we need to eliminate them from the equation.”
After adamantly defending his support for police, Stallworth immediately did the same for the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Their [Black Lives Matter] purpose was to highlight what they thought was the unconstitutional abuse of authority by the police. It had nothing to do with them targeting cops, as has been portrayed on Fox News,” Stallworth said. “Black Lives Matter advocates working with the police and the community to improve conditions in the community. They do not advocate attacking police officers; that is not part of their agenda. And if anybody would simply read what they’re about, you could recognize this, but the people at Fox News can’t read.”
This last line was greeted by tumultuous applause. But Stallworth wasn’t done yet.
“I believe in being fair to the situation at hand, and dirty cops need to be eliminated from the equation. You should be honorable in the oath that you took to uphold the constitution,” Stallworth explained. “You should live that oath, live it fully, and if you cannot do so, pull that badge off, put that gun away, take that uniform off…get out of the profession because you don’t deserve the public trust if you can’t handle it… I don’t want dirty cops amongst the ranks of the profession that I consider honorable and that I held dear for 32 years.”
If anyone in the audience that night was not quite convinced Stallworth was a trustworthy man who wrote a worthwhile book, they need only listen to David Duke himself.
“David said he liked my book. He read it, he liked it, and he respected me for telling the truth,” Stallworth said. “So if anybody doubts the validity of my story, the grand wizard himself has endorsed me.”