Upon returning home, his parents explained racism to him for the first time. In time, he realized that he was the only kid being targeted but he didn’t know why. When people in the crowd started to hurl bottles, cans, and rocks, he thought to himself, These people must not like the Boy Scouts. He was also the only black Boy Scout present. In 1968, on a statewide Boy Scout march to commemorate the ride of Paul Revere, he was chosen by his troop to carry the American flag. That’s where he began to develop his ideas about racism and public discourse, leading to uncomfortable actions and results that can’t be easily dismissed.Īfter a childhood spent abroad, where he was educated at international schools attended by people of many races and ethnicities, Davis moved at age 10 to a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, where he was one of two black kids in his school. To understand everything that he did next it’s necessary to go back to his childhood. These people belonged to a despicable, stomach-churning, evil organization. His friends, black and white alike, thought that he was crazy. Indeed, he has defended conversations that many people would condemn, starting with the time that he called up that member of the Ku Klux Klan, informed him of an upcoming gig at the Silver Dollar Lounge, and befriended him as he attended subsequent gigs, sometimes with other Klan members. Here I want to present Davis’s views, which are worth grappling with as judgment calls are made in less extreme circumstances.Īs he sees it, conversations of a particular sort can be hugely useful in the fight against racism. I believe that remedying discrete injustices ought to be the first priority of the anti-racism movement and that conversations about race can offer some salutary benefits. But disagreements on the subject are much older.
Those words came back to me this week as I reflected on an ongoing controversy: what to make of the notion that we need to have “a conversation about race.” Lately, that debate has focused on a flawed plan by the CEO of Starbucks to host in-store conversations.
There is no substitute for hearing Davis tell the story in a his own words. It has been recounted in several interviews and a book, but I first heard about it this year while listening to the interview podcast Love+Radio.
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