Black Klansman

If there's a downside to this book, it's that Stallworth's issues with anti-racist activism could really be explored further. Like most works that cover hate groups, there's a lot of false equivalency applied to people working for civil rights because they upset law enforcement sensibilities.

“It was as if Dennis the menace was running a hate group.”

The meat of this story though, Stallworth's infiltration of the KKK, oh my! On one hand, you want to laugh at the buffoonery of David Duke and his co-conspirators. On the other, the terror of the Klan is that they somehow manage to survive and succeed in their terrorism despite their idiocy.

If nothing else, you come out of Black Klansman deeply aware that the powers that be do not take racist hate groups seriously enough. If a lone municipal investigator like Stallworth could comprehensively discombobulate regional Klan activity, why aren't more resources applied to hack such cancerous growth back to the root?

Black Klansman is a mixed bag for me, but it's definitely worth a read.

While I enjoyed the story Stallworth told, this book was badly written. It was written EXACTLY like a CSPD police report, but with a few personal anecdotes thrown in. It's written so an eight-grader can understand it, it defines many words most adults already know, and it's repetitive to drive home key points. It needed a fair amount of editing to reign in the number of run-on sentences I noticed. And couple lines really irritated me, such as “All men have a little ‘dog' in them where women are concerned”... I tabbed that with one word: Ew.

I generally appreciated Stallworth's humor throughout the book. I definitely laughed at times and feel it prevented the book from feeling dragged down by the heavy topic. I really liked some of stuff he said in the Afterword too. For example “This hatred has never gone away, but has been reinvigorated in the dark corners of the internet, Twitter trolls, alt-right publications, and a nativist president in Trump. [...] It is my belief that the Republican Party of the twenty-first century finds a symbiotic connection to white nationalist groups like the Klan, neo-Nazis, skinheads, militias, and alt-right white supremacist thinking.” This seems so contrary to what you expect a police officer to believe, especially in the Springs. It's such an interesting account that you'll never be able to find anywhere else, and it's well worth trudging through the writing and occasional bad take.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, not only for the incredible story behind it, but also as an attempt to read educational historical works during Black History month (it is, however, a worthy read no matter the timing).
I found the story to be quite fascinating, especially due to the fact that until the movie trailers, I had never heard of it before. I even did some mild digging online to try to find the validity of the statements being made and it seems pretty thoroughly written (ie. I did not find anything blatantly accusing it as fraud).
I was worried before I started reading the memoir (I had already seen the film) because I had read through a few reviews and multiple people referred to it as boring or a poor writing style. I have to personally say, that seeing as it is a memoir, I was never really expecting outright excitement or action. I feel as if some of the reviews posted on here almost seem like they're coming from the attitude that this is fiction and not a tale that actually occurred? I took on this read under the assumption that it would be along the lines of a textbook-style lesson on the events that took place. I believe it delivered on that and more. Stallworth takes multiple opportunities to indulge the reading in the knowledge that it is written to the best of his ability and memory, so I must say I disagree with most people knocking its style.
However, everyone is entitled their opinions

If you are on the fence, I would suggest reading.