Moral Courage Speakers Present “No Place for Hate”
In April, Principia College presented professional musicians and race-relations experts Arno Michaelis and Daryl Davis as this year’s Ernie and Lucha Vogel Moral Courage Lecturers. Michaelis, a former skinhead and hate-metal band member, and Davis, an African American, Grammy-nominated blues and jazz musician, seem an unlikely pair. Yet, the two travel the country together giving workshops and talks on the need to turn away from violence and toward reconciliation and harmony. They delivered their talk, “No Place for Hate,” to an engaged audience in Wanamaker Hall and spoke with students in smaller groups during classes and at a dinner at Hutchinson House.
Once filled with anger, Michaelis was a founding member of a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organization and the lead singer of Centurion, a favorite hate-metal band. His book, My Life After Hate, details how the forgiveness offered to him by people he once detested helped turn his life around. Today, he represents the Serve 2 Unite program founded in 2012 after the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, meets with the adult children of Holocaust survivors, and collaborates on art projects with elementary schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds. “People treated me with kindness when I least deserved it, and now I can make amends for my past behavior,” he said.
Davis regularly experienced racism as a child living in Massachusetts, including being pelted by rocks and bottles while marching in a Cub Scout parade. He recalls often asking family and community members, “How can they hate me when they don’t even know me?” Not until many years later did he find an explanation while playing a gig in Maryland. “I was approached by a KKK member in the audience who couldn’t believe that a black man could play like Jerry Lee Lewis, the famous white rock star of the 1950s,” Davis explained. The encounter turned into a friendship, and through it, Davis met Roger Kelly, a leader of the local KKK who was eventually promoted to Grand Wizard, the head of the national organization. After many meetings with Kelly and other KKK members and attendance at the group’s rallies, Davis developed a better understanding of how hate groups function and what they believe. He shares what he learned in Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan.
Both speakers described threats they receive for the work they do together, but they are undeterred. They support each other’s efforts to demonstrate reconciliation and human kinship, and they connect through music. Davis even played several boogie-woogie tunes on the piano, delighting the Wanamaker audience.
“People talked about the event long after the men left campus, commenting that the candidness of their message resounded with them,” says Charles Nwosu (C’19), who, along with freshman Nadja Peschke, served as student representatives on the Speakers Committee that chose Davis and Michaelis and hosted them during their visit. “Hearing from Daryl and Arno made me realize how anyone has the power to change,” Nadja commented. “I loved talking with them about their respective journeys, and it was clear that their success came from independently listening to and acting on the truth.”