Daryl Davis is a southern blues musician. He is African American who has an interesting hobby. He collects Ku Klux Klan robes. He's got about 200 of them. How he gets them is the story…
Davis got his first robe 30 years ago while playing in a bar in Frederick, Maryland. After his set, a white gentleman approached him. "I really enjoy your all's music," he said. "You know this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis." Davis thanked him and then asked, "Where do you think Jerry Lee Lewis learned how to play that kind of style?" And then the musician explained the roots of rock 'n roll in the black blues tradition, that the rockabilly style he liked was not invented by Jerry Lee Lewis but developed by black artists like Fats Domino and Little Richard.
The two talked for some time. As the conversation went on, the man said, "You know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man.'" He then said he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Davis laughed at first, not believing him - but he man pulled out pictures and produced his Klan card. Davis immediately stopped laughing. But the man was very friendly and asked Davis to call him the next time he played at the bar.
"The fact that a Klansman and black person could sit down at the same table and enjoy the same music, that was a seed planted," Davis recalls. "So what do you do when you plant a seed? You nourish it."
Davis decided to go around the country and meet and talk to as many Klan members as he could - music always being the entrée. First he learned all he could about the Klan to understand what they really think - that enabled Davis to sit down and talk with people who instinctively hated him. Davis deflated the racial stereotypes that fueled their anger and hatred. "How can you hate me when you don't know me?" he asks.
"If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy - it doesn't have to be about race, it could be about anything . . . you will find that you both have something in common. As you build upon those commonalities, you're forming a relationship and as you build upon that relationship, you're forming a friendship. That's what would happen. I didn't convert anybody They saw the light and converted themselves."
Once the friendship and trust blossom, the Klansmen realize that their hate may be misguided. When they renounce their membership, Davis collects the robes and keeps them in his home as a reminder of the dent he has made in racism by simply sitting down and having dinner with people. Daryl Davis has been having those conversations for three decades now. And he has their robes as testimonies. [NPR, August 20, 2017.]
Reflection: Proclaim Good News
God sent John the Baptist to proclaim the good news that we could repent, be forgiven, and return to God’s dream of restoration and salvation. John didn’t just cry out in the wilderness; he prepared people to enter the waters of baptism, to share their deepest truths, and to rise up ready for healed and reconciled relationship with God and with their neighbors.Proclaiming the Dream of Beloved Community
Healing, reconciliation, and justice are big ideas, but they all begin with exploring our stories, shared history, and deepest longings. If you listened closely to your church and your neighbors and civic partners, what might you hear? What experiences have people had around race, ethnicity and culture? Is there a shared vision of Beloved Community? What collective commitments and behaviors could you all make that would begin to foster the Beloved Community?
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