There have been some incidents in which I was threatened and a couple of instances where I had to physically fight. Fortunately, I won in both instances.

I have just about every book written on the Klan and I've read them all.

There has always been a great deal of racism in the U.S. before and after Obama.

I don't consider myself to be a racist, but to me there's not much difference between a black racist or a white racist.

Am I going to vote for Trump? Absolutely not. I do not believe in his platform.

I deal with Klansmen and white supremacists all the time.

Chuck Berry had a very profound impact on me. The man was a genius.

Back in the day, prior to rock and roll, music halls, concert venues were segregated if they allowed black people in at all. You know, there were ropes that went around the sitting sections with signs hanging that would say, 'Sitting for white patrons only,' or 'Colored sitting only.'

My parents were U.S. Foreign Service, so I spent a lot of time you know, overseas in various countries around the world, you know, I was an American Embassy brat and today, as a professional musician, I travel all over this country and around the world.

There are plenty of people, including good friends of mine, who are not racist, and who voted for Trump. A lot of people wanted a change from what they were accustom to for the last decades... they wanted a change of the status quo, a changing of the guard. And they were willing to overlook his misogyny, his racist or bigoted comments.

You can legislate behavior but you cannot legislate belief. Patience is what it takes. But patience doesn't mean sitting around on your butt waiting for something to happen.

1983 - Country music had made a resurgence in this country so I joined a country band. I was the only black guy in the band and consequently, usually the only black guy in many of the places where we played.

Music is my profession but learning more about racism on all sides of the tracks was my obsession.

If you have an adversary, an opponent with an opposing point of view, give that person a platform, regardless of how extreme it may be.

When something bothers me, I try to learn about it.

What we do too much of is, we talk about each other, we talk at each other, or we talk past each other. I have found that talking with each other is much more effective.

When you make friends with me, you have a friend for life.

In most of my encounters with Klan members, we would discuss reasons for why they were members in the first place.

Music is indeed the universal language and unites people.

If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.

I respect someone's right to air their views whether they are wrong or right.

You cannot hate the hate out of a person. You cannot beat the hate out of a person. But you can love it out of a person.

When was 'again?' Was it back when I was drinking from a separate water fountain? Was it when I couldn't eat in that restaurant over there?... 'Make America Great Again' - before I had equality?

I've been playing music professionally, full time since 1980 when I graduated college at the age of 22.

You don't change the system without changing the people behind the system.

I had to keep myself in check. Like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa.' I'd never sat in a room, five feet away from a Klansman putting on his damn robe. That's what freaked me out a little bit. But I wanted to see a Klansman.

Everybody likes music. And rock 'n' roll - that was the music that brought white youth and black youth together for the first time in American music history.

Venues had segregated seating - but when Chuck Berry fused together blues, boogie-woogie and country music, it caused people not to be able to sit still. They bounced up out of their seats, knocking over ropes, dancing together.

There's no more denying it, or saying we live in a post-racist society. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see all these hate crimes.

He spoke nine languages. You know some people can just pick up an instrument and play. My father was like that with languages.

It doesn't sound rational for a Klansman to sit down to dinner with a black man. What you're overlooking is, to be racist is to be irrational. So, they are already irrational, and irrational people do irrational things. That's why a Klansman will sit down with me.

I don't have any brothers and sisters, so I always relied on my parents to guide me or answer questions.

I'm always thinking 'how can I blend something?' whether it's musical instruments, voices, or the people around me.

In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.

Rock 'n' roll was uniting black kids and white kids, and rock 'n' roll is not being given credit... for being just as important to the civil rights movement as the activists.

I've heard stories of pickup bands that can't follow, but here's the thing: If you want to play with Chuck Berry, you listen to his greatest hits and learn the format of the songs, but don't try to play it note-for-note.

I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.

I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.

Hate cultures are not a thing of the past. They're a continuing problem and one cannot blame presidencies for this. Racism in the U.S. began way back, before the time of Abraham Lincoln.

If you were to talk to somebody from Georgia you would understand what he's saying, he wouldn't sound like your next-door neighbor in Montana, but other than that it's the same language, just with a few little different nuances. That's just like country and blues, or blues and rock 'n' roll. They're the same music with different accents.

I came into music kind of late in life - until I was 17 I wanted to be a spy, wanted to be James Bond, so I had to learn rather quickly and practice longer than most people did to play catch up.

Racism is a cancer. Black people have been dealing with this ever since we landed on these shores in shackles and chains. If we've been doing it for that long, those of us who are impatient need to be a little more patient and keep on addressing those things, not ignoring it. White people need to do the same thing. Don't turn a blind eye to it.