Ron Stallworth took the concept of spying and using a disguise to a new level when the black police sergeant infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan posing as a white supremacist.
Ron’s surreal story began in 1978 when he spotted a classified ad in the newspaper recruiting members for the Colorado Springs KKK. “I wrote a letter to the P.O. Box pretending to be white,” Ron told SPYSCAPE’s True Spies podcast.
Ron posted the envelope and forgot about it. He didn’t imagine the letter would connect him to Grand Wizard David Duke, the preeminent Klan leader, but sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Ron was about to have fun with this twist of fate - so was director Spike Lee.
John David Washington played Ron Stallworth in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018)
The real BlacKkKlansman
Decades later, filmmaker Jordan Peele called Spike right after reading Stallworth’s book, Black Klansman (2018), and said six words: “Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan."
Lee was hooked, envisioning Stallworth’s story transformed into a humorous, angry movie about race and America - somewhat like Do the Right Thing (1989)but with a twist. "We wanted to connect the present day with the stuff that was happening in the early '70s," Lee told journalists.
Lee then sent a text to John David Washington, who he’d known since he was a baby - John David appeared with his father, Denzel, in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. He asked JD to read Stallworth’s book. John David loved it. “All right. See you this summer,” Spike replied.
The end result was an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Spike Lee, a Golden Globe nomination for John David Washington, and a powerful anti-racism movie that Americans took to heart.
“I've got several people telling me there were one or two black people in the theaters and then - after the film, when the lights finally go up - the white people who loved the film were hugging them,” Lee said. “They were hugging black folks in theaters saying ‘I’m sorry. I apologize. I apologize.’”
Ron Stallworth took the concept of spying and using a disguise to a new level when the black police sergeant infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan posing as a white supremacist.
Ron’s surreal story began in 1978 when he spotted a classified ad in the newspaper recruiting members for the Colorado Springs KKK. “I wrote a letter to the P.O. Box pretending to be white,” Ron told SPYSCAPE’s True Spies podcast.
Ron posted the envelope and forgot about it. He didn’t imagine the letter would connect him to Grand Wizard David Duke, the preeminent Klan leader, but sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Ron was about to have fun with this twist of fate - so was director Spike Lee.
John David Washington played Ron Stallworth in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018)
The real BlacKkKlansman
Decades later, filmmaker Jordan Peele called Spike right after reading Stallworth’s book, Black Klansman (2018), and said six words: “Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan."
Lee was hooked, envisioning Stallworth’s story transformed into a humorous, angry movie about race and America - somewhat like Do the Right Thing (1989)but with a twist. "We wanted to connect the present day with the stuff that was happening in the early '70s," Lee told journalists.
Lee then sent a text to John David Washington, who he’d known since he was a baby - John David appeared with his father, Denzel, in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. He asked JD to read Stallworth’s book. John David loved it. “All right. See you this summer,” Spike replied.
The end result was an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Spike Lee, a Golden Globe nomination for John David Washington, and a powerful anti-racism movie that Americans took to heart.
“I've got several people telling me there were one or two black people in the theaters and then - after the film, when the lights finally go up - the white people who loved the film were hugging them,” Lee said. “They were hugging black folks in theaters saying ‘I’m sorry. I apologize. I apologize.’”
Ron’s story is grounded in the American Civil Rights movement and the ‘60s when the KKK was at its zenith. The Klan - known for their pointy white hoods and extreme views - believes in a racial hierarchy that elevates Americans of white European descent and targets ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans like Ron Stallworth.
Ron grew up in El Paso, Texas, however, far from the race riots in Georgia and Alabama, and a long way from David Duke’s base in Louisiana. When Ron’s family moved west to Colorado, the 19-year-old accepted the first well-paid job he found. As the only black police cop in Colorado Springs, he endured routine racial abuse - and that was before he left the precinct.
Ron kept his mouth shut for 18 months and passed his probation, however. “The minimum wage in America at that time was $1.60-an-hour,” Ron said. “As a newly hired police cadet, I was making $5.25.
Ron’s first undercover assignment was monitoring a speech by Black Panther Stokely Carmichael. “I was giving the Black power sign, the raised fist. I was saying: ‘Right on brother.’ Because what he was saying made a lot of sense to me. And then it dawned on me: ‘You're operating in an adversarial capacity here.’” Ron lowered his fist but kept listening.
Ron was also keeping an eye on the newspapers and classified sections, which is how he stumbled on the KKK advert. A week after posting his letter in 1978, the phone rang at the police station. The president of the local KKK chapter wanted to speak to Ron.
“That's when I realized I had signed my real name to that letter,” Ron told True Spies. “I immediately had to start operating as an undercover cop on the phone and pretending to be something that I wasn't, something that I never imagined I ever would be. And that's a white person, a white racist, a white supremacist.”
Ron Stallworth with his KKK membership
The undercover Klansman
The KKK wanted a face-to-face meeting so the police wired up a different officer, a white undercover agent named Chuck, who pretended to be Ron Stallworth. Ron then decided to up the ante and put in a direct call to David Duke, the so-called ‘Grand Wizard’ of the secret society.
“He said he would personally process my application,” Ron recalled. While he was on a roll, Ron couldn’t resist asking another question: 'Mr. Duke, aren't you afraid of some smart-Alec n****** calling you up pretending to be white?'”
Ron enjoyed duping the Grand Wizard with several more phone calls until 1979 when Colorado Springs announced that David Duke was coming to town. The police chief put Ron in charge of his security. The entire investigation was now in jeopardy. What if the KKK supremo recognized Ron’s voice? Nonetheless, the only black officer in Colorado Springs agreed to protect the most racist man in America.
“I told [David Duke]: ‘I don't agree with your philosophy or political ideology… But I am a professional and I would do everything I can to keep you alive and safe.’ We shook hands.”
Ron was a pro but he could still have fun at the Grand Wizard’s expense. After shaking hands Ron asked for a photo. With David Duke on his right, and the KKK ‘Grand Dragon’ of Colorado on his left, Ron smiled. Fellow undercover officer Chuck snapped a Polaroid photo just as Ron lifted his arms around the men. It’s a memory Ron still savors and one Spike Lee captures brilliantly in BlacKkKlansman.
Spike Lee and the Black Klansman
It wasn’t until decades later - after Ron retired and his cover was blown - that his story made the news and Spike Lee began circling. The screenplay was eventually adapted from Ron’s memoir and investigation casebook he ‘forgot’ to destroy.
Spike Lee with his Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for BlacKkKlansman
“I really try to refrain from telling people what they should feel about a film,” Spike Lee said, but he hopes audiences will view the film from a wider perspective. “I do hope people realize that stuff that happens in the film is not just something that pertains to the United States of America. This rise of the right is a global thing.”
“The ending really hammers home where we really are in this world today.”
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