Peace activist Daryl Davis on why having a president like Donald Trump might be a good thing after all

If Daryl Davis had to state just one goal in his life, it would be this: “We have to change our thinking.” It’s a simple statement but one that underlines the work undertaken by the 59-year-old race relations activist for close to three decades. Davis has travelled the length and breadth of his country, the United States of America in his ongoing fight against racism. In India, for a three city tour, Davis addressed students of Nirmala Niketan School of Social Work on Tuesday.

As a 10-year-old, growing up in Boston Davis was often perplexed by his encounters with racism. “I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong. I told him that white people have a gene that makes them serial killers, because there aren’t any black serial killers who could be named,” he said. Years later, he took the same question to Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members and was successful in persuading some of them in renouncing their beliefs. “At the end, ignorance is the source of biases. If we cure that, there’s nothing to fear and hate,” he said. The result was documented in his book, Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey through the Ku Klux Klan (1998). He’s also the subject of an award-winning documentary Accidental Courtesy (2016) produced by PBS about his interactions with the KKK and other white supremacist groups.

Davis’s closet is filled with dozens of KKK robes given to him by those he inspired to leave the Klan. He plans on opening a museum. “I have preserved all of them because it is important for people to know about American history even if it is good or bad or ugly,” he said.

Inspired by the civil rights movement leader, Martin Luther King Jr, Davis is also a Blues musician who has jammed in the past with greats like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. “I have also played for Donald Trump. He ideally shouldn’t be President, but the fact that he is, could bring a change for us. It is opening conversations and discussions on race and issues on women’s rights, which we ignored before,” he said. Talking about his Indian sojourn Davis said, “I wanted to visit India because I have always wanted to explore the country. More than that, I have always found the caste system in India identical to the racism in the United States,” he said. Davis, in India on the invitation of the US Consulate General to talk about race relations and tolerance, will also visit Ahmedabad and Chennai as part of his tour.