app c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment, investing billions for infrastructure, upgrading technology empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies support c-span2 is a public service. host: our first guest of the morning as a musician, activist

and author of the book " clandestine relationships." daryl davis, welcome to washington journal. what do you do for your main job? guest: i am a professional musician, touring around the world. host: what kind of music do you do? guest: whatever they pay me to play. [laughter] my degree is in jazz, but i play a lot of rock 'n' roll, country. host: you take this path of being a musician, and somehow you end up meeting with members of the ku klux klan. guest: as a bandleader, my job on stage is to foster harmony between all the voices on my stage. anytime you hear dissidents, unless it is -- dissonance unless it is intentionally injected, it is noise. i try to have harmony. when i step off the stage, i want to have harmony around me in society. host: when did you realize this

was something you needed to do? guest: i spent a lot of time as a child, growing up overseas. i traveled a lot. i was always in multicultural schools. in the 1960's as a kid in grade school, i had classmates from nigeria, japan, russia. all of their children went to the same school. when you came back home, i would be either in all-black schools or black-and-white schools, meaning they were still segregated or nearly integrated.we did not have that multicultural classroom that i had overseas. something was wrong. i could not put my finger on it until i was participating in a parade in which i was the only black cub scout in the parade. everything was going fine until at one point i was having bottles and rocks thrown at me.

this was 1968. my parents explained racism to me, and at the age of 10 when this happened, i had never heard the word " racism." why would i? it was not in my sphere. overseas i was living 10 years ahead of my time because that multicultural environment had not yet come to our classrooms in this country. when it finally did, i was already there. host: tell us about your first meeting with the kkk. how did that happen? guest: i was playing at a bar in a town called frederick, maryland. the bar was known as an all-white bar, not that there were any signs, but black people knew they were not welcome there. when you go somewhere where you all are not -- where you are not welcome and alcohol is being sold, bad things

can happen. i was the only black guy in the band. a guy put his arm around my shoulder and told me it was the first time he heard a black man play the piano like jerry lewis. i told him that jerry lee lewis learned from black piano players. he wanted to buy me a drink. i don't drink alcohol. he bought me a cranberry juice. he clinked his glass -- my glass and said " this is the first time i have sat down and had a drink with a black man." i was truly baffled. i asked him why. at first he didn't answer me. his buddy elbowed him and said " tell him!" he said " i am a member of the ku klux klan." i burst out laughing at him!

i know a lot about the klan. it doesn't work that way. i thought this guy was pulling a joke on me. he took out his wallet and handed me his klan membership card. i stopped laughing, but the guy was generally friendly, generally interested in me. we talked about the kln and soman -- klan other things, but he gave me his card and told me to call him when i would be playing at this bar again so he could call his friends. i call him. when i called, he brought klansmen to see me play. they would get ther -- out there and dance.

a couple of them would it up and move across the room. " we do not want to touch you, we just want to look at you." that is how that started. later, i decided to write a book on the klan. i wanted to interview these people, go down south, midwest, interview different klan members, and find out " how can you hate me when you don't even know me?' that was the basis for clandestine relationships. that became the first book written by a black author on the ku klux klan. host: table there -- daryl davis is our guest. if you want to ask him questions, it is (202) 748-8000 four the eastern -- for the eastern and central time zones and (202) 748-8001 for the

pacific and mountain time zones. what have you discovered in talking with these people? guest: they have their own perceptions until they meet somebody in person. then that perception can be shaped. what you want to be careful of is you find someone who says "daryl is ok for a black guy." when i make -- get into relationship, then i introduce them to other friends of mine,, black people, jewish people, white people who looked just like them who may not agree with their views. they see other people and think " maybe daryl isn't the exception." a clansmen is is not stamped out of a cookie-cutter. they may be monolithic in their

ideological views. i have found, traveling around the world between my childhood and my adulthood as a musician, when you combine those 2 sets of travels, i have been to 61 countries, i have played in all 50 states, and no matter how far i go from our country, no matter how different people may be who i encounter, they do not look like me, they do not worship as i do, i always conclude that we are all human beings, and as such, we all want these basic 5 core values. everyone wants to be loved, we all want to be respected, we went to be heard, we want to be treated truthfully, we want the same for our families as anyone else wants for their families. if we can learn to apply those five values, when we find

ourselves in an adversarial situation, i guaranteed the navigation will be much more smooth. let's take abortion, nuclear weapons, the war between -- in ukraine, or the last presidential election, these are all hot topics. you are on one side, someone is on the others. apply those values, and you can never get the conversation. host: how many klan members have you spoken to, do you think? guest: several hundred. over 200 have left. i have the robes and flags to prove it. host: there are pictures on your website. they give you these things. why is that? guest: it is a piece of american history. it is a shameful piece of american history. everybody has history, good, bad, ugly, and shameful, and we

need to learn from it, for the same reason we do not destroy the things in the holocaust museum. host: do you hold them at your home? guest: i keep most of them locked up off-site. i have a few in my home that i travel with when i go and give lectures. host: you can read his book " clandestine relationships." are first call is from jonathan. jonathan is in california for our guest daryl davis. caller: i have muted my television. i am looking at these amazing photographs daryl has taken. i admire you so much, daryl. you are an amazing human being. you said early on you had traveled all over the world, so you have been exposed to a lot of different cultures, languages, and that is why your

brain is wide open to receive new information. guest: i will give you and the audience at home my favorite quote of all time.

>> love c-span. caller: -- guest: i'm just three years older than you and f had my share of racism. i continue to face it but i believe the greatest weapon and most effective weapon to combat racism is the least expensive and the most underused, it's called conversation. i believe a missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed

opportunity for conflict resolution and that's how i deal with it. by applying those values. is everybody going to change? absolutely not. being hateful, violent and racist. but if someone's willing to take the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with you even though you are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum , there's opportunity to plant a seed. it may not happen overnight. you have to come back and nurture that seed and that's where we see the change. host: how difficult is it to keep those conversation civil? guest: it's fine for me. a lot of people try to take it personally. i don't take it personally. how do someone come into a room and call me names and tell me what i am and i hear that all the time. why should i believe it? i know who i am. you don't know who i am when i first walk in a room.

you can make these allegations. why should i take that personally? if my mother or father told me the some thing wrong with you, maybe i would believe them, but not somebody who doesn't know me. so rather than attack that person, let them get it all out because people want to be heard. if you allow them to be heard without attacking them, chances are they will reciprocate and allow you. they're so used to pushing buttons, how, this guy isn't reacting. host: to the callers point have you ever felt in a situation being in danger having these conversations? >> sure where i've had to put somebody in jail. fortunately i prevailed on the street and later in court. those are few and far between. when you deal with that

situation it can happen. host: that never stopped you from continuing? guest: absolutely not. this is our country. caller: i was taken aback because the gas brought this

inbred i'm wondering if the guest even knows that the head of the kkk was judah p benjamin. what i don't like is the fact it's an illegitimate organization created after the confederacy lost the civil war and their target was black people. here he brings of jews as if they were out there lynching jews when they were lynching black people. i just don't agree with this idea that as long as they talk to me ok, all that they did doesn't matter as long -- as long as were having a conversation as were having a conversation is good change reality. it's not really different if you look at quality-of-life stats. i just don't like this. i feel that this gentleman is adding legitimacy to something that's very much illegitimate. host: hold the line, stay on

because i want to get to the response and will go back. guest: thank you for your comments. understand something. i've been doing this for 40 years. i'm very much aware of when the clan was formed, why was formed and what it's doing today and doing in the past. your comment about it being illegitimate is factually wrong. unfortunately it is shameful, i do not support it, i will never support it but it is not illegal to hate. it's not an illegitimate organization. perhaps it should be but it's not paired we don't have the right to hate -- we have the right to hate but not to hurt. so rather than battle people in the street, why not bring them to the table and have a conversation. allow them to learn about you, dispel their fears about you because of the color of our skin and things like that.

when you've been mistreated as i have. i'm a descendant of slaves. when you have been mistreated for 400 years and you are still being mistreated 400 years later , it's time to change the approach. i'm not supporting it or condoning it on trying a different approach and it's working and i have the proof for it. host: do you have a response. caller: my only response is first of all i hear what you're saying but what i said was illegitimate with the organization. i said the organization was illegitimate based on illegitimate claims and they didn't handle the fact that the head of the kkk was named judah p benjamin. host: you've made those points are ready so thank you, michael. guest: the first leader of the

clan was nathan bedford forrest and they've had many sins. have gone all the way from third grade dropouts all the way to presidents of the united states. president warren g. harding was sworn into the ku klux klan in the green room of the white house. president harry truman had joined it for a short time before he became president. he didn't like it and got out. a supreme court justice was in the clan when he got the appointment to sit on the supreme court. he had to leave the clan to do that. our last oldest living senator from west virginia was a -- in the 1940's which means state recruiter for the ku klux klan. he later saw the wrong in it and did a lot for civil rights. people can change. if you don't believe people can change, why are you still here? do you want to complain the rest of your life or do something

about it. >> the southern poverty law center says in 2021, 18 clan groups and then united states. that is dropped. >> there are probably a few more than that. the number of groups has dropped. it doesn't mean other organizations don't exist paired there's a lot of neo-nazi groups a lot of alt right groups, oath keepers, proud boys, the national alliance, to go on and on. these are all offshoots of clan ideology. it was the first and largest at one time.

>> we ate at each other's homes and everything. but what happened to break our friendship up. >> good morning ladies and gentlemen. i'm from the office of chief of public affairs. we have on our panel today the secretary of the army, the chief of staff of the army. the panel will give them an opportunity for any open remarks and then for questions. these wait for me to call you. -- call on you.