Review: Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman' is daring and essential
In 1979, a man named Ron Stallworth who was the first African-American police officer and detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department also became a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan and the leader of the local chapter. He would send a white co-worker to play him for in-person meetings as part of the wild undercover operation, but Stallworth was the one on the phone, insisting his hatred for non-white races with everyone from the local chapter members to the KKK's "grand wizard" David Duke himself.
It's Stallworth's story that provides the framework for Spike Lee's blistering new film, "BlacKkKlansman ," but hardly the full picture.