Former KKK Grand Dragon Tells All - YouTube

Scott Shepherd, reformed racist and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee, joins David to discuss getting into and out of the KKK and reforming his racist beliefs

Former KKK Grand Dragon Tells All - YouTube

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From KKK Grand Dragon to Anti-Racism Crusader: The Remarkable Reinvention of Scott Shepherd

"They gave me a home, a sense of well-being, a family. It was definitely a tactic to recruit troubled kids like me."

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With its weird honorific titles, which sound like it was coined by a bunch of geeks playing Warhammer, and its costumes, which would look embarrassing at a child's Halloween party, the Klan is seen as a caricature, a risible parody of an evil organisation.

Given the contempt in which we hold the Klan, it's almost hard to imagine its members are real people, capable of real human emotions such as empathy or remorse. Yet the case of Scott Shepherd challenges some of our tropish stereotypes and suggests even the most fanatical Klansman can change their ways and learn from their mistakes, just like the rest of us.

Shepherd, a former Grand Dragon of the Klan in Tennessee, is now one of America's most ferocious anti-racism campaigners, having turned his back on the KKK and made it his life's mission to defeat the creed he once espoused. The people he once called friends have sent him death threats, yet still he carries on, desperate to atone for the sins of his past.
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"I read a lot about it, it struck an interest in me. I made contact with a Klansman when I was 16 or 17 years old, they were having a rally in a nearby town. I went, and not long after I was contacted by one gentleman and recruited to into the KKK. They gave me a home, a sense of well-being, a family. It was definitely a tactic to recruit troubled kids like me."