Tag Archives: Ron Stallworth

El Pasoan and Black Klansman author Ron Stallworth of El Paso has been added to the SOMOS Fund benefit set for next week in Downtown El Paso.

Austin High School graduate Stallworth led an undercover investigation of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs in the 1970s. His book about the experience was turned into a major motion picture by Spike Lee, which came out in August.

Stallworth author read excerpts from the book at this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival, and is one of three authors who have been added to Tuesday’s literary event.

Award-winning author Benjamin Alire Saenz (Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club) and Philip Connors (A Song for the River) also will appear.

They join noted border experts and authors Andrew Selee (Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together), Alfredo Corchado (Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries, And the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration) and Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border).

The authors will discuss their books, and take part in a Q&A session moderated by journalist Angela Korcherga.  A meet-and-greet and book signing will follow the Q&A.

Selee is the founder of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and current president of the Migration Policy Institute of Washington, D.C. Corchado is an El Paso-based border correspondent for the Dallas Morning News. Cantú is an award-winning author and former Border Patrol agent from Tucson.

Corchado created the SOMOS Fund in the El Paso Community Foundation to help Jaguares Jovenes de Bien, A.C., which provides support, mentoring and college scholarships from young victims of violence in Ciudad Juarez.

Admission is a $100 donation, which includes available copies of the authors’ books (courtesy of Literarity Book Shop); or a $25 minimum donation at the door (books not included).

Signed copies of their books also will be for sale. Donations may be made at the door or online.

The SOMOS Fund benefit will begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 27 in the El Paso Community Foundation’s Foundation Room, 333 North Oregon, across from San Jacinto Plaza.

Fans will be able to meet the real Ron Stallworth, the detective whose unbelievable true story inspired the new Spike Lee film Blackkklansman, at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Montecillo at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 11, 2018.

“Ron Stallworth’s autobiography is the kind of story that’s so crazy, it must be true,” said Analiza Guzman, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Montecillo’s Creative Manager. “To see it come to life under the direction of Spike Lee makes it all the more remarkable. Having this great El Pasoan come down to Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Montecillo to talk about his life and this movie with theatergoers is an honor.”

Ron Stallworth, who resides in El Paso and graduated from Austin High School before going on to a career in law enforcement, will sign copies of his memoir following the screening. The book will be available for purchase in the lobby before the screenings on Saturday at 7 and 7:45pm.

Set in the 1970s, Blackkklansman is the story of Stallworth’s experience infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan as the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Legendary filmmaker Spike Lee (DO THE RIGHT THING, MALCOLM X) brings Stallworth’s story to life with all his trademark style, wit and fire, alongside the production team behind 2017’s smash-hit GET OUT.

The film won the prestigious Grand Prix during the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and is an early Oscar favorite.

Click here to purchase tickets to one of two special screenings with live Q&A which will begin at 7pm and 7:45pm at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Montecillo.

Tickets for other showings are on sale right now at the Drafthouse webpage.