Award-winning musician, race relations expert Daryl Davis comes to PCA&D

The Pennsylvania College of Art & Design Liberal Arts Department invites the public on Friday, Oct. 4, to the Diverse Voices Speaker Series: The Voice and Music of Daryl Davis. Davis will share his inspiring story about his work to achieve racial harmony and his powerful blues piano playing and singing. 

Davis’s appearance begins at 3:30 pm in the Atrium at PCA&D, where he will share the life experiences that led to his 1998 book Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey and the Independent Lens documentary film screenplay Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America. He speaks about the power of conversation to ignite positive change, understanding hate groups in America, and how music broke down racial barriers in the 1950s and 1980s. 

Davis, whose parents were in the US Foreign Service, traveled extensively as a child. At 10, when the family moved to Massachusetts, he encountered racism firsthand. The question, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” stays with Davis for decades. As an adult, he sought the answer to the question by interviewing Ku Klux Klan members, some of whom ended up becoming his close friends, leaving the Klan, and giving him their robes and hoods. 

In 2017 Davis completed a screenplay, Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race, & America, about his continued efforts to combat racism, which was produced and directed by Mathew Ornstein. The 95-minute documentary film originally aired on PBS and currently is available on three streaming services. 

As a race relations expert, Davis has received numerous awards and high acclaim for his book and documentary. He also is the recipient of numerous awards, including the highly prestigious Elliott-Black Award and the Bridge Builder Award presented by the American Ethical Union and Washington Ethical Society, to name a few. 

At 6 pm on Oct. 4, Davis will present an hour of the energizing boogie-woogie blues piano playing that initially attracted many Klan members to him and opened the door for them to get to know a Black person. Davis believes that music is a powerful uniting force. 

An extraordinary international performer, songwriter, vocalist, pianist, and guitar player, Davis earned his BA in Music (1980) from Howard University. Mentored by Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson, he mastered the boogie-woogie piano blues in the Delta and Chicago styles. Today he mentors young musicians through the Artist in Residency program at the Strathmore Institute in Bethesda, Md. He was awarded Best Traditional Blues/R&B Instrumentalist at the 2009 Washington Area Music Awards and served for several years as the artistic director of the Centrum Acoustic Blues Festival. Davis has been to 56 countries and six continents. 

Davis has performed extensively with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Legendary Blues Band (formerly The Muddy Waters Blues Band), and Elvis Presley’s Jordanaires. He has played with artists such as The Platters, The Temptations, The Drifters, The Coasters, Bo Diddley, Bruce Hornsby, Percy Sledge, Sam Moore, Little Richard, and B.B. King. He has performed with the US Army and Navy bands, and appeared on multiple television shows such as The Tonight Show. He also has released several albums, including Rockin’ My Blues Away (1982), American Roots (2000), Alternate Routes (2008), and Greatest Hits (2011). In addition to his career as a performing musician, Davis is the owner of Lyrad Music, a music publishing and licensing business. 

As an offshoot of his work, Davis is an adjunct professor with Johns Hopkins University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute & Community as well as Oasis. He is a board member of FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism) and is a cofounder, board member, and Global Ambassador of the Prohuman Foundation. 

Davis received rave reviews for his stage role in The Time of Your Life and has played several film and television roles, including HBO’s The Wire. As of February 2022 he had more than 12 million views for his TEDx Talk. Davis runs a podcast called Changing Minds with diverse guests such as former KKK Imperial Wizard Scott Sheperd, blues guitarist Bob Margolin, and documentary film director and human rights activist Deeya Khan. 

PCA&D, The Blues Society of Central PA (BSCP), Nola Blue record company, and numerous anonymous donors are community sponsors of this free event.