Tributes to Heather Heyer, 32, in Charlottesville Bear Grylls // Digital Spy Stallworth found the fifth code particularly amusing: 'To never discuss any Klan affairs with any plain clothes officers on a state, local or national level'. On the back of the membership card were six conduct codes. Stallworth successfully acquired Klan membership two months after first making contact. That contact led to weekly calls with Duke. He even called David Duke, the notorious leader or 'Grand Wizard' of the hate group, to confirm his membership. All the while, Stallworth kept up the act over the phone. Stallworth realised that to purse the investigation further he would need a white colleague to pretend to be him to meet with Klan members in person, so he enlisted his colleague, who is known as 'Chuck' in the book and played by Driver in the film. 'I signed it with my real name, gave them the undercover phone line, mailed it and forgot about it until two weeks later when I got a call from the local organiser,' he says. He even signed the note with his real name, something undercover officers usually avoid doing. He sent it to the PO Box address listed without discussing it with his colleagues-and he didn't think through what might happen next. Stallworth followed the advert by writing a letter posing as a white racist who wanted to join the Klan. He noticed a classified advert for the Ku Klux Klan, encouraging people who wanted 'further information' to get in touch.Ī scene from BlacKkKlansman Bear Grylls // Digital Spy

It was October, 1978, when Stallworth-at 25 years old, having joined the police force at 19 as the only black man in the department-was flicking through a local paper.

Stallworth's investigation came about around a decade after the third wave, which saw Klan members commit heinous acts, such as the 1963 bombing of a baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four black schoolgirls. According to the Anti-Defamation League, as of 2017, there are still 40 active Klan groups in the US. The third wave hit in the 1950s and 1960s during the Civil Eights Era. The first movement came in the 1860s, when it was founded shortly after the end of the Civil War, followed by a resurgence around 1915. The group is often defined by three 'waves' in which they had the highest membership and were most violent.

The KKK have perpetrated innumerable acts of domestic terrorism against minorities over the past two centuries in the US.

Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth