384 pages
23 photographs
Not by the Sword tells the inspiring true story of how a Jewish cantor and his family changed the life of a virulent white supremacist leader. This riveting account begins in 1991, when Cantor Michael Weisser received his first threatening phone call from Larry Trapp, Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Nebraska. But Cantor Weisser and his wife, Julie, refused to be intimidated by Trapp's escalating threats. Instead, they made a stunning offer of friendship. After an emotional confrontation with the Weissers, Trapp shocked everyone—including himself—by resigning from the KKK and breaking his ties with other neo-Nazi leaders.
Not by the Sword recounts Larry Trapp’s life as a racist, his startling transformation in response to the Weissers’ kindness, and his subsequent crusade to redeem his past. Kathryn Watterson movingly describes how one family feared, fought, and then forgave a man who had tried to destroy them.
This gripping tale gives the reader an inside view of hate mongering and offers a powerful testament to the triumph of the human spirit and the transforming power of love and tolerance.
“This rare investigation of American hate-mongering provides a unique glimpse as well at the power of tolerance and love. Once Watterson places us inside the Lincoln, Nebraska, apartment of the ‘Klansman’ of the subtitle, it’s almost impossible to put this book down.”—Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle
“Watterson has written one of the most powerful, painful, yet healing stories about our most explosive issue: race. Her book [Not by the Sword] is not only literally true but also symbolically true for us as a people—if we acknowledge and transform who and what we are.”—Cornel West, author of Race Matters
“Not by the Sword tells an astonishing story of daring and resourcefulness in making contact with another who would negate one’s very right to exist. . . . Watterson’s account of the events is fascinating, and the story itself is so extraordinary that one cannot but be gripped by it.”—Paul L. Wachtel, Washington Post Book World
