Author Daryl Davis will discuss his near-incredible interaction with the Ku Klux Klan when he brings his battle against racism to Pennsylvania College of Technology on Monday, Feb. 15.
“After 134 years of nothing but violence and hatred, it’s time we get to know one another on a social basis, not under a cover of darkness,” says Davis, whose “Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan” has been described as both harrowing and awe-inspiring.
His lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the college’s Student Government Association as part of Black History Month activities. It will begin at 7 p.m. in the Klump Academic Center Auditorium.
Pelted with rocks while marching with an all-white Cub Scout troop at age 10, Davis eventually endeavored to understand those who, without ever having met him, hated him solely due to his skin color. Drawn by a need to make sense of racism’s roots, he set out to meet Roger Kelly, an Imperial Wizard of the Invincible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Through Kelly and others, Davis – who also is a multiple Grammy Award-winning pianist – began to gain insight into the Klan, its workings and its members’ minds.
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