Davis has worked to improve race relations by seeking out, engaging in dialogue with, and befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1983, he was playing country western music in a "white" bar in Frederick, Maryland, when a patron came up to him and said it was the first time he had "heard a black man play as well as Jerry Lee Lewis". Davis explained to the man that "Jerry Lee learned to play from black blues and boogie-woogie piano players and he's a friend of mine". The white patron was skeptical and over a drink admitted he was a member of the KKK. The two became friends and eventually the man gave Davis contact information on KKK leaders.
A few years later, Davis decided that he wanted to interview Klan members and write a book on the subject, to answer a "question in my head from the age of 10: 'Why do you hate me when you know nothing about me?' That question had never been answered from my youth".
Davis eventually went on to befriend over twenty members of the KKK, and claims to have been directly responsible for between forty and sixty, and indirectly over two hundred people leaving the Klan.Over the course of his activities, Davis found that Klansmen have many misconceptions about black people, stemming mostly from intense brainwashing in their youth. When they got to know him, Davis claims, it was more difficult to maintain their prejudices. The artist has recounted his experiences in his 1998 book, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan.
Daryl Davis is not on a mission to "convert" bigots, white supremacists, Klansmen, or Nazis. Rather because of the earnest respect he offers all human beings and his core beliefs in the power of love, respect, fairness and his willingness to listen and find the heart of "the other" that people are moved and transformed. Over 200 Neo-Nazis, Klansmen and others who belong to organizations that preach hate have chosen to leave those organizations and give Daryl their robes, flags, insignia and other symbols of hate.
As a musician, Davis absorbed the style of blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta who had migrated north. In 1980, he earned a bachelor of music degree from Howard University, where he was a member of the Howard University Choir and Jazz Vocal Ensemble. Davis "was mentored by legendary pianists Pinetop Perkins and Johnnie Johnson, who both claimed him as their godson and praised his ability to master a piano style that was popular long before he was born", according to his Kennedy Center profile.
Davis has frequently played backup for Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. He was a friend of Muddy Waters and played piano in The Legendary Blues Band.Davis has also performed with blues icon B. B. King, Elvis Presley's Jordanaires, The Platters, The Drifters, The Coasters, Bo Diddley] Percy Sledge, and Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave).
In 2009 Davis was awarded "Best Traditional Blues/R&B Instrumentalist" at the Washington Area Music Awards. For several years, Davis served as artistic director of the Centrum Acoustic Blues Festival.
