A black member of the Ku Klux Klan? Sure, as a comedy routine. Think Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles” or Dave Chappell’s Clayton Bigsby.

But the membership card Ron Stallworth shows me, signed by former Grand Wizard Duke in 1979, is proof and not a joke.

"Nobody would ever believe me if this card had been destroyed or if my membership certificate had been destroyed,” says the retired Colorado Springs police officer who’s the subject of the Spike Lee movie, “BlacKkKlansman,” opening this weekend.

In promotional tours, Lee says he at first thought the story had the ring of the Chappelle skit when it was pitched to him by fellow director Jordan Peele. The adaptation is based on Stallworth’s 2014 book, “Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime,” which draws heavily from files Stallworth says he kept against direct orders. Assured the story was true, Lee jumped on it.

Credit by- The Marshall Project

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