I chose the book Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigations of a Lifetime by Ron Stallworth after seeing the movie trailer. It is the tale of a black undercover police officer in Colorado that infiltrated the KKK. Then. discovering that rather than it being just a clever movie idea – it is actually a true story, I had to learn about this.

This is one of those too-good-to-be-true stories. At times, it just seemed to fall together too perfectly and too absurdly to not have had the truth stretched a little bit. I went into it with that bias.

Yes, there are still some questions like – after they saw the case was developing, why keep doing it with two separate people? Why not just let the white police officer take over the entire case. It seems more secure with less need for the two to constantly compare notes and keep each other up to speed.

By the end, I am left with the belief that yes, it did actually happen. I haven’t seen the movie BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee but in researching the differences, it appears that Mr. Lee took great liberties with the story. The book however, is a very interesting read.

by Chris Doelle