Student reports on interview with KKK
Lule writes biracial view of conversation
High school senior Trinity Lule sat at her computer in her Beaver County journalism class browsing the internet. It was a slow day at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, a charter school in Midland, and its newsroom, where a team of a dozen writers usually covers school news, arts and sports.
The 18-year-old was looking for a story.
She wondered aloud what might happen if she did a search for the Ku Klux Klan. She thought the organization was secretive, even underground, but the search brought her right to its website.
“Why don’t you give them a call?” her teacher asked.
A few weeks later, Trinity, who is biracial, was on the phone with the national director of the Knights of the KKK, Thomas
Robb, successor to the infamous David Duke. As one of the only reporters of color at her monthly newspaper, The Siren, Trinity said she looked forward to offering a unique perspective.
The interview would become her school newspaper’s January cover story, and a young journalist was born.
In Trinity’s words, she had pulled a Ron Stallworth. Stallworth, the African American police officer, author and subject of the 2019 Academy Award-winning Spike Lee movie “BlacKkKlansman,” infiltrated the Klan by pretending to be white in a phone conversation with Duke in the 1970s.
Trinity said Mr. Robb had no idea she was black. For the first 30 minutes of the interview, he referred to white people as “we.”
Tucked in a soundproof room while talking to one of the nation’s most notorious white supremacists, Trinity said she felt “suffocated.”
She waited for what she thought would be the right moment to reveal her race. Half an hour in, she asked him, “So, what’s my role as a black person in the eyes of The Knights Party?”
Mr. Robb paused. Trinity thought the line had gone dead. Blacks, he said, should join his cause as “official supporters.”
Erin Brody, 17, The Siren’s managing editor, said this was the first article that had gotten so much attention. With Trinity’s photo and “Siren Reporter Infiltrates KKK” in large type on the cover, all 250-plus copies of the hand-folded, hand-stapled issue were gone within the day.
“When we were distributing, a lot of people were like, ‘Wait, what did you do?’ ” Erin recounted. “And we were like, ‘Yeah, you should read it!’ ”
Trinity said the Klan’s website boasts that they often do student interviews. So when her journalism teacher, Dan LeRoy, The Siren’s faculty adviser, suggested that she speak with them, the organization was agreeable.
She didn’t expect to speak to Mr. Robb himself. And she didn’t expect a hate group to have slick public relations and smooth-talking frontmen.
Trinity and Mr. Robb talked about racial heritage, white culture, and minority treatment in America. The article recounts Trinity’s perspective of the interview’s most striking moments.
Trinity reported that over the course of their conversation, Mr. Robb spewed hate and told her that black people don’t have the same compassion as white people.
“That’s why they all kill each other for a pair of sneakers in Chicago,” he said.
Mr. Robb went on to tell her that minorities had been treated well and that black community leaders aren’t grateful enough for the Civil War soldiers who gave up their lives to fight slavery.
Trinity, whose father is black and from Uganda and whose mother is white and born in the U.S., said she has heard other people make statements without being aware of their racist undercurrents.
When Mr. Robb learned he wasn’t speaking with another white person, Trinity said, the
conversation shifted tone. He began giving shorter answers and switched to more politically correct language, like using the term “people of color” instead of “blacks.”
“In a way he was probably as nervous as I was,” Trinity said.
Her mom, Tiffany Crotzer, said the phone call worried her.
“So much of the world just chips away at your self esteem,” said Ms. Crotzer, 40. “I didn’t want her to open herself up ... to someone who could be so hateful.”
She said her daughter told her she had an interview with a “small, alt-right group,” but neglected to mention the organization until after the call. In the end, though, Ms. Crotzer said, her daughter impressed her.
After Trinity had written the story, it was brought to principal Lindsay Rodgers — not for permission, but as a courtesy heads-up, Mr. LeRoy said.
Ms. Rodgers was supportive, and even suggested a Q&A sidebar between Trinity and Erin to help contextualize the article for readers.
Lincoln Park students can enroll in a class called “publishing,” in which they can work for The Siren or on the BatCat Press, the nation’s only student-run publishing outfit, according to Mr. LeRoy. Trinity is a “swing member,” meaning she works for both The Siren and BatCat.
Because she splits her time between the two, Trinity has had limited experience writing for the paper.
Now, she has caught the journalism bug. She said she plans to write for the school newspaper at Butler County Community College next year, and eventually hopes to become a journalist.