In this memoir, Ron Stallworth writes about becoming the first black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department and doing a bit of undercover work investigating the Black Panthers before eventually becoming deeply involved in an investigation into local KKK activities. And by "deeply involved," I mean that he accidentally ended up in an undercover investigation as the voice of a white man named Ron Stallworth who was supposedly interested in joining the Klan. He communicated with KKK members over the phone, while a narcotics officer named Chuck acted as the face of white Ron Stallworth when face-to-face meetings were necessary.

I bought this, even though I almost never read memoirs, because this case sounded bonkers and because it was set in Colorado Springs, one of the primary places I grew up. I had seen previews for the movie but didn't immediately realize it was based on a book, and I somehow missed that it was set in Colorado Springs. Since it didn't seem likely that the movie would be shown in my area (it wasn't), I figured I'd give the book a shot.

For the most part, I enjoyed this, and I'd recommend that anyone with a connection to Colorado Springs read it. It was a fascinating piece of the city's history, and although I'm too young to have been in the city at the time it took place, I still enjoyed seeing places mentioned that I knew and/or had been to before.

There was a lot of stuff here that I didn't know. For example, I hadn't known about the grip that the KKK had on Colorado politics in the 1920s and 1930s, or that they had such a huge presence in Denver in particular. I went to both middle school and high school in Colorado and don't remember any of this coming up. I suppose this information could have been covered and I just missed it (history didn't generally interest me), but I'd have thought this kind of thing would have stuck with me.

I enjoyed the times when Stallworth poked fun at the KKK, and there were a few moments in the investigation that made me outright gasp. I wonder how much of it made it into the movie (I still need to watch it). There was a bit involving a KKK application that I imagine would have looked overdone onscreen - I still can't believe that Chuck and the other officer got out of there without any of the KKK members figuring anything out or growing suspicious.

The book's organization was a little confusing, to the point that it was sometimes difficult to follow the case's timeline. I had thought that Stallworth was writing about events relatively chronologically, but this didn't turn out to be the case. For example, on page 84 of my copy of the book, Stallworth was asked by those who knew about his investigation to show off his KKK membership card (which struck me as risky - was it a good idea for so many people to know about the investigation and for Stallworth to show off the card? what if any of those people were secretly KKK members?). Four pages later, Stallworth was calling David Duke to ask about the status of his membership card. There were a few other moments like this, but this one was the most glaring. I also found his occasional "Officer Ed" rants to be overly sudden and a little off-putting.

There were many things Stallworth wrote about that were still applicable today. At one point, for example, there was an anti-KKK protest, and 20 or so KKK members showed up as counter-protesters. They were initially ignored and didn't even bother to put on their robes until one of them asked a member of the media if they'd like a story and the person said yes. After that, it became a media feeding frenzy. As Stallworth wrote:

"The media all too often unwittingly creates the very news it reports because of its zeal to get a story. This only benefits the person or subject being covered and gives them or it a power neither deserves." (126)

 It's the kind of thing you can still see in play today, as the media gives screen- and air-time to white supremacists who wouldn't otherwise have that significant of a platform. That said, there were times when I very much disagreed with Stallworth's interpretations, particularly his thoughts on "Antifa" (his decision to capitalize it, not mine).

I wonder whether the movie faithfully stuck to the book's ending, or whether it embellished things a bit? If this had been fiction, the ending would have been deeply disappointing -

All in all, I'm glad I read this, despite my issues with some of it.

Extras:

Several pages of black-and-white photos of documents, items, and photographs relating to the KKK investigation and the beginning of Stallworth's career as a police officer.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Thanks to Net Galley and to Kensington for offering me a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the description of the novel I was interested in discovering a new Southern writer and seeing how Danny Johnson fitted in with a literary tradition filled with pathos and a heavy historical burden. Unfortunately, the news filled up with incidents of racial violence in the USA as I was reading it and it made the content of the book topical and urgent, even if the story goes back to the times of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.

The story is told in the first person by Junebug, a young white boy that at the opening of the novel is only eight years old and has just lost his parents in a car accident (his father made moonshine liquor and they were driving with the car full of alcohol at the time of the incident). The boy goes to live at his grandparents’ tobacco farm and becomes friendly with twin African-American siblings, Fancy and Lightning. This is South Carolina and although the friendship flourishes whilst they are kids, it is clear that whites and African-Americans know their places and there might be heartache to come. From very early on fate seems to be against Junebug that after losing his parents, and in short succession loses his grandfather and later his grandmother, being left looking after the tobacco farm alone aged only fifteen. By that point Lightning has left seeking adventure, his relationship with Fancy has moved on and things get more and more complicated.

The novel deals with many of the typical themes to be expected from a Southern novel: race relations (and interracial relationships), the weight of family and small town morals, historical memory (there’s only a passing mention of the Civil War, but the Ku-Klux-Klan plays an important part in the plot and later we hear also about the Civil Rights Movement). The novel is also a coming of age story, as we follow the main characters from a very early age, and see them change, in body and character, and discover new urges and feelings as they grow. (A word of warning: there is some sexual content, although not the most explicit I’ve read or even close.) As they live in a farm, there is a fair amount of detail of traditional farming tasks, from growing up tobacco, to churning butter or killing a chicken or a pig, which I enjoyed and I didn’t find overly long or distracting from the main plot.

Junebug’s life is marked by violence, and it reflects the violence that is part of the history and the atmosphere of the land. He gets fixated on his dog’s death (his father shots the injured dog at the beginning of the story) and his fate, apart from losing loved ones, seems to put him on the way of circumstances that lead to his use of violence (but I don’t want to give too much of the story away). After a serious warning from the KKK, he ends up in Vietnam, as a way of finding refuge (for strange that it might seem) from his loneliness. There he discovers he has a natural talent as a sniper but finally things come to a head when he realises he’s not as hard and as strong as he had always thought and one can’t hide from the consequences of one’s own actions and violence forever.

I did enjoy the style of the novel, its many memorable lines, the many themes that give one pause (that also include PTSD after Junebug’s war experience although possibly even before that) and the details of everyday life offered by the narration. I spent over half the novel trying to accurately place it in time (we are given clues, like the price of things and the fact that Junebug’s mother’s grandfather fought in the Civil War) but Junebug mentions it is 1963 quite late in the story (although admittedly it would have seemed irrelevant to a child in his position). His style of language changes suddenly when he gets to Vietnam, as once more he has to adapt to new extreme conditions, and he seems to get into the role of the marine easily and with gusto.

I found the plot and the experiences of the main characters interesting, although perhaps too much is fitted into a single book and it does not allow for a deep exploration of the many different strands. Junebug is not very articulate when it comes to his feelings, although some of his reflections can be quite sharp. He not only tries to hide his feelings from others but also from himself (it’s not easy to trust somebody when all your loved ones die and you wonder if there’ something wrong with you), and even an experienced therapist has difficulties getting to the root of things, but that fits in with his experiences and his personality. Junebug has flashes of insight, like when he wonders how Fancy must feel, knowing that she’s considered a second-hand citizen only because of the colour of her skin. He does not notice a big social difference between him and Fancy and her folks, but he is young, naïve, inexperienced, and it takes him a while to realise that due to the fact that he is white and has a farm he belongs in a completely different universe in the eyes of his neighbours and a big part of the society. Personally, I would have liked to follow Fancy’s story in more detail, but that is not the focus of the book. Thankfully, the ending is not typical, although it might leave some wondering (considering the character’s age one can’t help but wonder if that’s the end).

In summary, a well-written novel that fits in within the Southern writing tradition, although not ground-breaking. I’ll follow the author’s career with interest.

This book was a semi interesting memoir, which is maybe a really good thing since I wanted to read something factual and not sensationalized. It wasn't terribly written but it wasn't amazing. And while Rowe did provide the FBI with valuable information, I have to wonder if it was all worth it and how much of the book was accurate. I found myself sickened at the things suggested by the KKK members in this book, but they where also things that Rowe went along with. I'm sure that on some level it was to maintain his cover but does that make it okay? The ethics of undercover work are complicated at best. And given that he did not hide his own enjoyment of violence, does that matter?

I'm also curious about how his opinions may have changed over the years. In the end of the book he denounces the violence and treatment of blacks as second class but still wants segregation. I read through a new york times article from 1998 about Rowe's life and death and I'm about to go see what else I can find since apparently there is more to the story (like what the story is regarding the cover image).

I wouldn't recommend this book unless it's a topic your really interested in but I'm glad to have 1 of the 12 books I pulled off my bookshelf done.

I went through a phase where I went to the used bookstore once or twice a week and bought a few books every time and Shock of all Shocks I bought things I didn't end up reading. What is actually shocking is I still have some of these books lurking around. Ten Years Later. Any who, I've moved many times and have been dragging these around things around with me and no big surprise I'm not really interested in them anymore but at the same time I can't not read them at this point, I've been carrying them around too long.  I'm also currently working on fixing some of my high school reading failings. So I went down to the bookshelf and picked off the books that fit those two categories (and 5 Agatha Christie books that I can't remember if I bought new or used but associate with ages 14-17).  Basically what I'm saying is I pulled 12 books of my bookshelf and my TBR just grew with books I'm mostly not thrilled about.

"In spring 1866, six young Confederate veterans met secretly in Pulaski, Tennessee. Their purpose was to found a "hilarious social club," to "have fun, make mischief, and play pranks on the public." They called themselves ku klux, a corruption of the Greek kuklas, and added clan, spelled with a k for uniformity . . . Not that the cause of white supremacy was overlooked, by any means. The Klan was racist from day one, playing its "pranks" exclusively on blacks."

I read this as part of my ongoing investigation of family history and genealogy, and it was no fun. Interesting, yes. Important, yes. But the subject is so sickening and maddening that I finished it feeling awful, despite this being a scholarly account. There's no sensationalism in the presentation, but sensationalism would be redundant. The subject is inherently sensational in the most perverse and ludicrous ways imaginable, and if the Klan were just some fringe element that blipped on the American radar in passing, perhaps we could consign it to the footnotes of history. That is where you tend to find it, but unfortunately more substantial coverage is due.

The Klan's political and social dominance has been sporadic and mostly covert but at times overwhelming, and for time periods extending way beyond a blip. And it was and is not confined to the South; the Indiana and Kansas Klans rank among the most vocal and active, and as of 2007, 450 million virtual members in 18 states had signed in to "be a man, join the Klan" via a simulation game called NationStates.

It is rightly called a terrorist organization, and yet in the most perverse and ludicrous way it is a logical outcome of the insidious and pervasive racism that for decades allowed and encouraged slavery and segregation. And think about this for a minute or two: Byron De La Beckwith admitted -- bragged about -- killing Medgar Evers in 1963 but was not convicted until 1994. The Klan has again and again and astonishingly gotten away with murder.

I am only 55, but throughout my childhood and as recently as 1975 -- which was the last time I visited family in Mississippi -- I can confirm that Jim Crow was alive and well, and 1975 is 110 years after the Civil War ended.

My father left home in 1934 at age 17 in part to get away from his father, who was a devout Klan member and possibly a leader. I didn't find my grandfather's name in this book but knowing he was a participant is very disturbing. He died in 1955 so I never knew him, and my father mostly refused to talk about him (I didn't find out my grandfather was in the Klan until after my father died in 2005), but Dad explained to me how joining the military had cured him of his own racism, as in seeing black men serving their country in World War II, only to have their civil rights denied back home (which was Medgar Evers' case in the extreme).

Dad shared this in 1975 while showing me the plantation his family had sharecropped. From there we went to lunch at the local diner, and proceeded to walk out without finishing or paying for our meal when the owner stood at the entrance and told a black man he'd have to sit on the stoop out back to eat. The diner was full of apparently decent middle-class white folk, and I will never forget how they stared at us like what was our damn problem, or how proud I was of my dad, or that the owner just said good riddance, didn't want our money.

So, yeah, I could go on, but this isn't the time or place. Suffice it to say that Michael Newton has written a very interesting and important and overdue read. Ridicule is a fitting response to the Klan, but it's not enough. We need to understand and confront what it says about who we are and how we have evolved as Americans.

And I recommend this as a companion read:

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