Klan-destine way to shatter racism

During his childhood, Davis, whose parents worked in the US Embassy, lived and studied abroad in international schools, with playmates from different countries. At the age of 10, they returned to the US, where Davis was subjected to racism in his own backyard. 

“In 1968, I was the only black boy in an all-white Cub Scout troop in my school. During a parade, with white people lining up the sidewalk, stones and bottles were thrown at me. The Cub Scout leaders rushed to my side and surrounded me, before leading me away from the crowd. Till that point, I thought people hated the scouts. When my parents found out about the incident, they explained that it was because of racism. I didn’t believe them until four months later, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr was murdered and cities across America burned,” recalled the musician.  In Davis’ mind, the episode of racism formulated itself into a question: how can you hate me if you don’t know me? “I decided to speak to the members of white supremacy group like Ku Klux Klan (KKK),” he said, describing his interaction with the Grand Dragon of KKK in Maryland, Roger Kelly. 

“I had asked my secretary to set up the interview, knowing that the person would assume that I was a white man. If I had spoken to him, he would have known my identity through my voice. At the motel, the bodyguard, dressed in military camouflage with a huge KKK badge, preceded Roger, dressed in a blue suit. Both were taken aback when I introduced myself, we shook hands. Then I brought my recorder and started talking to him about his hatred for African-Americans and each time he used the Bible to justify that, I took out my Bible and asked him to show me the passage,” said the author of Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey through the Ku Klux Klan.  

From that point, the musician continued his dialogue with other Klansmen, several of whom gave up their robes. “They told me that they couldn’t hate me because we wanted the same things for our families. I realised that ignorance breeds fear, which causes hatred. We try to destroy what we hate, because we fear it, which could have been harmless. We need to address the problem — remove the fear through education. People don’t fear what they know,” revealed Davis, who was in the city for a performance on harmony and inclusion.

For the last 50 years, Davis has been trying to understand and stop racism, which gains urgency since the Donald Trump administration came to power, with a recorded increase in hate crimes in the country. This could be a good thing, said Davis. “For too long, US has failed to address these problems. The man who is our president has made racist remarks. Now, women who have been abused decades ago are talking about it. Students are marching in the streets protesting gun laws. People are having conversations which we should have had 50 years ago. Though this was not the president’s intentions, more conversations mean we take the taboo out of it,” he said, adding that his work is far from over. “Racism continues in my country. My work will continue,” he signed off.

When mono was the only way to record their songs and rock n’ roll was just birthing from the prevalent rhythm and blues trend, Davis was performing with Chuck Berry, one of the pioneers of the genre. Pianist Davis and Berry performed for 32 years, belting out hits like Johnny B Goode and Maybellene. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” said long-term collaborator Davis, who has performed with legends such as Jerry Lee Lewis and BB King. “Chuck was a genius. Many people can say that they can play an instrument or sing a song or perform but very few people can say that they have invented a genre of music, which he did with rock and roll,” he said.