Quotes from Ron Stallworth

My mother never liked that I worked undercover. She always worried.

I had to learn to navigate the political and religious currents in a state where Mormonism dominates despite not being Mormon.

I laugh all the time about our investigation, especially about making a fool of David Duke, who likes to think I don't have the intelligence of an ape because he thinks I'm genetically inferior.

I learned at an early age how to traverse the white world, the white-dominant world. I learned, and I was successful at it. I learned the nuances - I learned how to act, how to be - but I always was conscious and aware of my blackness.

In my opinion, Spike Lee is a national cultural treasure - to the black community in particular but to America in general.

When you hear Donald Trump say 'America First,' that was a Klan slogan from the early 1900s. Trump simply resurrected it. It's a clear example of his racist attitude.

Donald Trump is the physical embodiment of what David Duke wanted to achieve and failed.

To me, race is the single most divisive factor affecting American society. It's an issue that we are afraid of, that we shy away from, and quite frankly, it amuses me that we are so sensitive to the issue.

I joined the police force with one motivation in mind: to become a high school PE teacher. After a year of working, I realized that a) I was making twice as much money as I would in the teaching profession, and b) I was having too much fun. I stuck it out for 32 years and no regrets.

I went to school with a lot of kids whose fathers and mothers were part of the El Paso black history.

Too many people are afraid to talk about the issue of race. We should be willing to address it, and more importantly, when it rears its ugly head, we should be willing to take a stand and try to stomp it out, whatever the action may be at a particular time.

You cannot sit quiet while the KKK and other white supremacist groups rear their ugly heads.

I was playing a role and acting. But it was different than Spike Lee's movie. Spike can say 'cut' and move to the next scene. But I was pretending to be a white supremacist, one of them. I had to act like them to make the ruse a success.

'Malcolm X' is my favorite Spike Lee movie.

It's kind of like an out of body experience, watching my words being spoken by the actors, watching the portrayal of me by John David Washington.

When I became a cadet, I immediately decided I wanted to be an undercover cop because I don't like uniforms.

The military is a microcosm of American society, so it really is not unusual that they would have Klan people and white supremacy people connected to them.

My experience working the KKK assignment influenced the rest of my career in law enforcement in that it taught me to think and act on my own initiative when my superiors in the department stood in my way.

A lot of people said I tried to speak white on the phone. That is farthest thing from the truth and offensive.

People in Hollywood will say things one minute and change it the next.

Skinheads and Neo-Nazis are commonly known to openly attack people who get in their way or don't agree with them and their agenda.

That was one thing that we learned, that the Klan was making an active recruitment pitch to the armed forces - not just in Colorado Springs, but in other parts of the country as well. With trained military personnel who share that ideology, you know you have a valuable soldier at your disposal.

That was part of David Duke's agenda, is to turn the Klan from a racist organization in the eyes of the public into something that is respectable and acceptable.

At various times in my undercover career I had either a full beard, a short-cropped beard, Fu Manchu, a plain simple moustache or just a goatee. We did that - generally we would have a look that we would maintain for anywhere from 3 to 6 months.