Activist mourns ex-KKK leader

'Unlikely' bond inspired book, film

He was the Grand Exalted Cyclops of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. She was a well-known black activist.

C.P. Ellis hated blacks. Ann Atwater detested whites.

But when Ellis died of Alzheimer's disease in Durham last week at 78, Atwater mourned the loss of one of her best friends.

They started out as enemies, but got to know each other in the early 1970s during a 10-day community conclave on race relations and school integration.

They were an unlikely duo, feverish with disgust for one another. But then organizers tapped them to lead the conclave. For a week they ignored each other. Then, they cloistered themselves in an office where they talked and cried about how wrong they'd been. On the last night, Ellis ripped up his KKK card in front of the crowd.

"At the end of 10 days, him and I fell in love, and we've been in love ever since until he closed his eyes on Thursday," Atwater said Monday.

They ate at each other's homes and traded hugs reserved for family, the sort that last for several seconds. Their friendship became the subject of a book and the focus of a documentary. They were interviewed twice by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Studs Terkel.

For Ellis, in particular, there was a price to pay.

Seeking to belong

Born in Durham to parents who were poor textile workers, Ellis finished eighth grade and then went to work, said Diane Bloom, who produced and directed the 2000 documentary, "An Unlikely Friendship."

He joined the Klan in search of a sense of belonging after his downtrodden childhood.

He told Florence Soltys, who conducted the documentary interviews, that his first KKK rally was exciting beyond belief. "With the white robes, the fiery cross, the country music and the crowd, I said, 'That's what I want in life.' "

When he changed his mind and renounced his membership, his Klan friends shunned him.

His friendship with Atwater hardly had an auspicious beginning.

During planning for the intensive community meeting, which was called to bolster race relations in the community as court-ordered integration took hold, Ellis said, loudly and profanely, that blacks were to blame for any problems.

Atwater fumed, profanely.

At the beginning of the conclave, Atwater recalled, Ellis would drive up each morning, open his trunk, and show the mayor and council members his gun nestled inside.

Atwater, meanwhile, would walk by clasping a little white Bible. She had a plan. "If he said something to me, I was going to knock the devil out of him with that Bible."

He never spoke to her.

Poverty creates a bond

Their detente occurred gradually.

Ellis found himself clapping along with a black gospel choir that performed during the community workshop. He was hopelessly out of rhythm -- "White folks didn't know how to clap along with us," Atwater said -- so she grabbed his hands and helped him.

When Ellis brought his Klan robe and hood and reams of printed KKK material, Atwater prevented angry black teens from destroying the paraphernalia.

He thanked her. "He said, 'You ain't as bad as I thought you was,' " Atwater recalled. "He saw I protected his stuff."

When they finally talked privately, they bonded over what it was like to be poor and how they wanted more for their children, starting with an education in which they got as much attention as the middle-class or wealthier students.

Bill Riddick, who organized the workshop, said they were shocked when they realized they yearned for the same things.

"It was an amazing and fascinating thing to watch, the process of turning hatred into at least respect," Riddick said.