Daryl Davis had his first experience of white hatred when he was a Cub Scout in Massachusetts, marching in a parade—white people threw rocks and bottles at him. He found it hard to understand why strangers would do such a thing.

Years later, Davis had a degree in music, and was a professional pianist working with some of the great bands of the 80s. Playing a solo gig in a Maryland bar, he was approached by a white man who told him he’d never before heard a Black pianist play as well as Jerry Lee Lewis. Davis, who had played in Lewis’s band, explained that Lewis had learned his style from Black players. The conversation went on over drinks, a first for the white guy, who had never had a drink with anyone Black before; he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

And that went on to other conversations with members of the Klan, including an “Imperial Wizard,” as Davis researched a book on white hatred of Blacks. Davis had such an impact on the Imperial Wizard that the man resigned from the KKK, disbanded the chapter he led, and gave Davis his hood. He even asked Davis to be his daughter’s godfather.

Daryl Davis has risked his life attending Klan rallies, approaching Klan members to talk, and persuading hundreds of them to leave the Klan. He tells the story in his book, A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan and in the work he now does online, including a podcast called Changing Minds, which has featured former members of the KKK and Al-Qaeda, as well as blues musicians, film directors, and journalists.

“The lesson learned,” says Davis, “is ‘ignorance breeds fear’. If you don’t keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don’t keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction.”