1983 - Country music had made a resurgence in this country so I joined a country band. I was the only black guy in the band and consequently, usually the only black guy in many of the places where we played.

You can legislate behavior but you cannot legislate belief. Patience is what it takes. But patience doesn't mean sitting around on your butt waiting for something to happen.

There are plenty of people, including good friends of mine, who are not racist, and who voted for Trump. A lot of people wanted a change from what they were accustom to for the last decades... they wanted a change of the status quo, a changing of the guard. And they were willing to overlook his misogyny, his racist or bigoted comments.

My parents were U.S. Foreign Service, so I spent a lot of time you know, overseas in various countries around the world, you know, I was an American Embassy brat and today, as a professional musician, I travel all over this country and around the world.

Back in the day, prior to rock and roll, music halls, concert venues were segregated if they allowed black people in at all. You know, there were ropes that went around the sitting sections with signs hanging that would say, 'Sitting for white patrons only,' or 'Colored sitting only.'

Chuck Berry had a very profound impact on me. The man was a genius.

I deal with Klansmen and white supremacists all the time.

Am I going to vote for Trump? Absolutely not. I do not believe in his platform.

I don't consider myself to be a racist, but to me there's not much difference between a black racist or a white racist.

There has always been a great deal of racism in the U.S. before and after Obama.

I have just about every book written on the Klan and I've read them all.

There have been some incidents in which I was threatened and a couple of instances where I had to physically fight. Fortunately, I won in both instances.

Music absolutely played a massive role in bridging many gaps in the racial divides I would encounter.

I was no stranger to racism. Having grown up a black person in the '60s and '70s, I knew that prejudice was common.

I've dealt with a lot of black supremacists as well as white supremacists, and supremacy of any kind is wrong, and I address both black and I address both white.

I have a former Baltimore City police officer's uniform and his robe and hood. He was the grand dragon, which means state leader. His day job, what paid his bills, he was a Baltimore City police officer, not an undercover officer in the Klan gathering intelligence, but a bona fide Klansmen on the Baltimore City police force.

A lot of the media says, 'oh, black musician converts X-number of Klansmen.' I never converted one. But over 200 have left that, the white supremacy movements, because I have been the impetus for that.

Some black people who have not heard me interviewed or read my book jump to conclusions and prejudge me... I've been called Uncle Tom. I've been called an Oreo.

I'd had a racist experience as a child at age 10, where people had thrown rocks at me and bottles. I didn't understand. And all it was, was because of the color of my skin, nothing I had done, nothing I had said.

The most powerful tools you can have are information and knowledge.

Over the past 30 years, I have come to know hundreds of white supremacists, from KKK members, neo-Nazis and white nationalists to those who call themselves alt-right. Some were good people with wrong beliefs, and others were bad people hellbent on violence and the destruction of those who were non-Aryan.

They've changed the name from white supremacy to white separatists, to white nationalists, to alt-right. It's the same thing. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

When I experienced racism here in my own country, I was not prepared for it. I had never heard the word racism.

I try to bring out the humanity in people.