Daryl Davis

Davis absorbed the style of blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta who had migrated north.[10] In 1980, Davis earned a bachelor of music degree from Howard University, where he was a member of the Howard University Choir and Jazz Vocal Ensemble. Davis "was mentored by legendary pianists Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson who both claimed him as their godson and praised his ability to master a piano style that was popular long before he was born," according to his Kennedy Center profile.[3]

Davis has frequently played backup for Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.[1][2][11][12] He was a friend of Muddy Waters and played piano in The Legendary Muddy Waters Blues Band.[12] Davis has also performed with blues icon B. B. King.[2]

Davis has played with artists such as Elvis Presley's Jordanaires, The Platters, The Drifters, The Coasters, Bo Diddley,[12] Percy Sledge, and Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave).[10]

He was awarded "Best Traditional Blues/R&B Instrumentalist" at the 2009 Washington Area Music Awards. For several years, Davis served as Artistic Director of the Centrum (arts organization) Acoustic Blues Festival.[13]

"Davis’ piano work impresses with his winning combination of technique and abandon, and his vocals are strong and assured," wrote a reviewer in Living Blues Magazine.[14] "Black rock’n’roll lives!"

• American Roots (2000)
• Alternate Routes (2008)
• Greatest Hits (2011)

Davis holding up KKK robes at Blues and Rock for Humanity in November 2017

Davis has worked to improve race relations by seeking out, engaging in dialogue with, and befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1983, he was playing country western music in a "white" bar in Frederick, Maryland when a patron came up to him and said it was the first time he had "heard a black man play as well as Jerry Lee Lewis". Davis explained to the man that "Jerry Lee learned to play from black blues and boogie woogie piano players and he's a friend of mine." The white patron was skeptical and over a drink admitted he was a member of the KKK. The two became friends and eventually the man gave Davis contact information on KKK leaders.[15][16][17]

A few years later, Davis decided that he wanted to interview Klan members and write a book on the subject, to answer a "question in my head from the age of 10: 'Why do you hate me when you know nothing about me?' That question had never been answered from my youth."[18]

In meeting with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK in Maryland, Roger Kelly, he concealed his race before the interview.

My secretary called him, and I told her, 'do not tell Roger Kelly I'm black. Just tell him I am writing a book on the Klan.' I wanted her to call because she's white. I knew enough about the mentality of the Klan that they would never think a white woman would work for a black man. She called him and he didn't ask what color I was, so we arranged to meet at a motel.[18]

The meeting was tense. Kelly arrived at the motel with a bodyguard armed with a gun. Davis became friends with Kelly,[16][8] with Davis later invited by Kelly to be his daughter's godfather.[8] When Kelly left the Klan, he gave his robe to Davis, who hopes to one day display it in a "Museum of the Klan".[8]

Davis eventually went on to befriend over 20 members of the KKK,[16] and claims to have been directly responsible for between 40 and 60, and indirectly over 200 people leaving the Klan.[19] He found that the Klansmen had many misconceptions about blacks, which stem mostly from intense brainwashing in their youth. When they got to know him, Davis claims, it was more difficult to maintain their prejudices. Davis recounted his experiences in his 1998 book, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan.

One Klansman told Davis that "All black people have a gene in them that makes them violent," based on the scientific finding that a 2-repeat MAOA gene increases the likelihood of violent activity, which was found to be most prevalent in African-Americans.[20]

After a time I said, 'You know, it's a fact that all white people have within them a gene that makes them serial killers. Name me three black serial killers.' He could not do it. I said 'you have the gene. It's just latent.' He said, 'Well that's stupid.' I said, 'It's just as stupid as what you said to me.' He was very quiet after that and I know it was sinking in.[21][8]

Klan members have often invited Davis to meetings and they have given him their robes and hoods.[16] In 2016, Davis estimated having collected 25 or 26 robes.[22]^:1h18m Among the "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" he interviewed were Grand Klaliff Chester Doles, Grand Giant Tony LaRicci, and Grand Giant Bob White, according to The Washington Post.[23] One Klan member gave Davis a medallion stamped with the words "KKK – Member in good standing."

Davis claims to be responsible for helping to dismantle the KKK in Maryland because things "fell apart" after he began making inroads with its members there.[16][21] However, since then the KKK was rebuilt in Maryland [24] under Richard Preston, leader of the Confederate White Knights who was arrested for firing his gun at counter-protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally.[25] Daryl Davis offered to post Preston's bail.[26] He later took Preston to the National Museum of African American History. Shortly thereafter he was asked to give away the bride at Preston's wedding.[27]

"The lesson learned is: ignorance breeds fear," says Davis. "If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction."[23]

Chester Doles, a member of the Klan, was convinced that Davis was a spy for the Anti-Defamation League or some other Klan-buster, and Davis's friends found his fascination with the Klan to be odd. "He's attracted to controversy," says Adolph Wright, an old friend and fellow musician who believes Davis is a bit eccentric. "When the crowd goes right, he goes left," Wright told the Post.[23]

Davis's father, the retired senior Foreign Service officer William B. Davis, believed that his son engaged with the Klan because he needed to make sense of their hatred, to seek common ground. He remarked to The Washington Post that his son "has done something that I don't know any other black American, or white American, has done."[23]

In 2016, the documentary film, Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America Davis interacts with KKK members and white Aryans, and provided contrasting views of his activities from members of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Black Lives Matter.[28]

Davis has acted on stage, film and television. He played a minor character in HBO's television series The Wire. He appeared on stage in William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life with Marcia Gay Harden, Brigid Cleary, and Richard Bauer, and in Elvis Mania at an off-Broadway theater in New York City. He received positive reviews for his role in Zora Neal Hurston's Polk County.[29]