BlacKkKlansman: Who is David Duke? Was he really DUPED by Ron Stallworth?

BlacKkKlansman follows the true story of the first African-American cop to join the Colorado Springs Police Department in the 1970s.

His name is Ron Stallworth, and he wrote a memoir called Black Klansman.

The true story has now been adapted to a blockbuster of a movie by Spike Lee, starring John David Washington as Ron Stallworth.

The key players in the movie are both fictional representations and real-life people.

Who is David Duke?

David Duke is played by Topher Grace in the movie, and the actor was not shy about his feelings on the man.

“The most evil thing about him is how well-spoken he is, how smart he is,” Grace said on the BUILD interview series, hosted by AOL.

Duke is an American white supremacist and white nationalist politician.

But it doesn’t stop there – he is also an antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, a convicted felon, and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

During the 1970s, the time BlacKkKlansman takes place, Duke was attempting to rebrand the KKK and his views to be more palatable to mainstream America.

“I remember thinking, this is a lesson in something that has its roots in what’s going on today,” Grace said.

“The idea of playing it was terrifying,” Grace admitted.

Perhaps more terrifyingly, David Duke is still alive – and his reactions to BlacKkKlansman have not been pretty.

“Actors say you should find something you agree with in the character that makes you empathise with the character and I couldn’t do it.

“I did a lot of research on the character. I read his autobiography – it was awful.”

Duke continues to speak against what he describes as Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. federal government, and the media.

He supports the preservation of his narrow, warped view of Western culture and traditionalist Christian family values.

Duke also calls for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service (America’s equivalent of HMRC), voluntary racial segregation, anti-communism, and white separatism.

“It was the worst month of my life doing that research,” Grace said on his undertaking of the role.

Was David Duke really duped by Ron Stallworth?

While it seems hard to believe the answer is yes, he was.

Lee’s adaptation of the movie remains true to life, in that Ron Stallworth really did make phone contact with David Duke, who mistook him for a white man.

As part of the investigation, and in much the same way as Stallworth made his initial contact with the KKK, he came across the phone number for “The Voice of the Klan.”

”Damned if David didn’t pick up the line,” Stallworth told The Washington Post.

“He laughed and said, ‘I’m ‘The Voice of the Klan.’ He identified himself as the grand wizard, the director.”

“I told him I was a new Colorado Springs chapter member and I was honoured to speak with him,” Stallworth said.

According to Stallworth, when Duke wasn’t talking about race he was pleasant.

But of course the subject of race would come up, and then Duke would change.

“[T]he monster in him came out,” Stallworth said, “and he said all the vile things about racial groups and people of colour, ethnicities and people, as they put it, who were not pure Aryan white.”

As for the complexities of playing a character as despicable as Duke, Grace took refuge in the fact that he was serving a greater cause – Lee’s message, Ron’s message, and the message of racial equality.

“There are zero other directors I would do this with besides Spike Lee.”

BlacKkKlansman is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 24, 2018.