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Saturday Published: Nov 08, 2005 12:30 AM Modified: Nov 08, 2005 08:52 AM Activist mourns ex-KKK leader 'Unlikely' bond inspired book, film CP Ellis, a reformed Ku Klux Klansman, is dead at 78.
Bonnie Rochman, Staff Writer He was the Grand Exalted Cyclops of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. But when Ellis died of Alzheimer's disease in Durham last week at 78, Atw ater mourned the loss of one of her best friends. They started out as enemies, but got to know each other in the early 1970 s during a 10-day community conclave on race relations and school integr ation.
Chavez claims landslide They were an unlikely duo, feverish with disgust for one another. Then, they cloistered themselves in an office where they talk ed and cried about how wrong they'd been. On the last night, Ellis rippe d 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 ev er 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 s ort that last for several seconds. Their friendship became the subject o f a book and the focus of a documentary. They were interviewed twice by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Studs Terkel. Seeking to belong Born in Durham to parents who were poor textile workers, Ellis finished e ighth grade and then went to work, said Diane Bloom, who produced and di rected the 2000 documentary, "An Unlikely Friendship." He joined the Klan in search of a sense of belonging after his downtrodde n childhood. He told Florence Soltys, who conducted the documentary interviews, that h is first KKK rally was exciting beyond belief. 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 too k hold, Ellis said, loudly and profanely, that blacks were to blame for any problems. 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. "If he said something to me, I was going to knock the devil out of him with that Bible." Poverty creates a bond Their detente occurred gradually. Ellis found himself clapping along with a black gospel choir that perform ed during the community workshop. He was hopelessly out of rhythm -- "Wh ite 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 materi al, Atwater prevented angry black teens from destroying the paraphernali a He thanked her. "He said, 'You ain't as bad as I thought you was,' " Atwa ter recalled. 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 ed ucation in which they got as much attention as the middle-class or wealt hier students. Bill Riddick, who organized the workshop, said they were shocked when the y 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. Two by two When Bloom approached the two about telling their story, Atwater was exci ted. But he was still gentlemanly, pressing two links fro m his beloved dead wife's broken bracelet into Bloom's hand when they me t It was a gift, he told her, so they could start out on the right foot . "After I finished with the documentary, I thought those two links were re ally significant," Bloom said. "If you could bring people together two a t a time like Ann and CP did, you could make the world a better place. " Terkel, now 93, interviewed Ellis twice for his books, including in 1991 for "Race: How Blacks & Whites Think & Feel About the American Obsession ." "How can I ever forget the conversations I had with him?" It was s ort of a revelation, but it didn't happen overnight." Ellis, white-haired and bespectacled, spoke slowly during the interviews. He was someone who was trying to find out wh o he is himself." Ellis was working in maintenance at Duke University when he met Atwater. After renouncing his Klan membership, he went on to organize black and w hite labor unions, helping members get raises without their supervisors playing the race card. He was married to Mary Ellis and had four children, three boys and a girl . Ellis was buried Saturday at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Durham. Bloom wasn't, but Ellis' death prompted her to reflect on what she sees a s one of her film's most poignant lines: "How do people get so screwed up mentally?" "They don't ha ve any evidence for the opinions they have.
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