Quotes from Ron Stallworth

The black community has always complained about abuse from cops. It's nothing new. But now, more people are seeing visual examples of what they've been complaining about. That's one thing that has changed over time.

When you're undercover you try to stay as true to your identity as you are. You know who you are, and you know how you normally function. If you try to put on a pretense, such as assuming a fake voice, you have to put on that fake voice all of the time. And you can't afford to slip out of it. It's too dangerous.

It was extremely dangerous to be a black man in the KKK. If I'd been exposed, it could have all gone horribly wrong. The Klansmen were armed, and there was always a peril.

I wanted to be an undercover cop, blending in with the public, looking like a black militant or a long-haired hippie yet having a gun on my hip, a badge in my wallet, and able to enforce the law. To me, that was the neatest thing in the world. It was also challenging.

It's the whole white-supremacist movement, no matter what they call themselves - be it Klan, Nazis, alt-right, skinheads - the basic ideology is the same. They consider themselves superior to others because of their white skin, and we should not sleep on that.

I felt that if the public found out that a black man made a fool of David Duke, his attempts at a political career would have fallen by wayside.

Two Klansmen were working for NORAD monitoring U.S. air space for missile attacks. I contacted the Pentagon, and the next day, they were reassigned to a posting near the North Pole.

I didn't take a lot of crap from people, and I didn't follow the conventional rules of behavior that we're supposed to follow - because if I had, I never would have accomplished what I did.

John David captured the 25-year-old essence of me very well. I'm proud to call him a Stallworth brother.

I've never concerned myself with what anyone thought about my activity, be they people within my profession or people outside of it, and I definitely wouldn't concern myself with anything coming from a racist bigot like a Klan member.

The KKK members that I was dealing with never saw me because my interaction with them occurred over the phone. They were convinced that I was 1) white, and 2) a racial supremacist like them based strictly on my telephone conversation with them.

Let's face it. Nobody predicted Trump. He's a fairytale nightmare that none of us could possibly have imagined. Shame on those 63 million who - especially those Obama voters who crossed over and voted, shame on them for putting this idiot in the White House.

If one black man aided by a bevy of good, decent, dedicated, and open liberal-minded whites and Jews can succeed in prevailing over a group of white racists by making them look like the ignorant fools that they are truly are, imagine what a nation of like-minded individuals can accomplish.

Cross-burning is a domestic act of terrorism. It's been classified as such.

I never thought America would be stupid enough to put this idiot in the White House. Up until a half hour before they declared Trump the winner, I still thought that it wouldn't happen. I never thought that we, as a nation, had fallen so much that we would be foolish enough to do that.

I'm just a kid from El Paso, Texas.

I phoned the KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in Louisiana and asked why my membership was being delayed. He said my application was on his desk and promised to deal with it personally. It was the first of many conversations with David Duke. We talked about his family, the weather, and about his political ambitions.

How I conned the Grand Wizard, David Duke, and his coterie of followers... It has defined me in ways I never could have imagined.

The white nationalist position, David Duke has always espoused that. The belief that immigrants are a threat to America and that we need border control, David Duke espoused that, and he talked about it during the time I was dealing with him.

We had a cop or two that were questionable, and probably they shouldn't have been on the job, but they were. You have that: a police department reflects the community that it serves, and it's going to have a bad apple or two, but when those bad apples are discovered, they need to be discarded as quickly as possible so the whole bureau doesn't rot.

That's one reason I retired as a sergeant and not at a higher rank... I refused to 'play the game' the way the bosses wanted the game played. It is a decision that has cost me money in retirement pay but one that I have never regretted.

What David Duke was preaching to me in 1978 about the Klan and what the Klan wanted to do regarding immigration is the same rhetoric, the same position that Donald J. Trump advocates and ran on and is trying to implement.

When he was not talking about race, David Duke was a very pleasant guy to talk to. He was a very nice conversationalist. He seemed like a regular guy on the phone when the subject wasn't on race and on Jews and ethnicity.

Racism is a part of human nature, and you're not going to eradicate it; all you can do is try to keep it in check.