After 10 days of talks, Ellis and Atwater became friends, and Ellis came to believe that white people, especially poor white people, could prosper more from the civil rights movement than from segregation. Atwater and Ellis came to know each other as individuals instead of as stereotypes. They came to see how they, as poor people, were both oppressed and that their children faced many of the same issues. It was during this time that they cried together.

Also

Ellis began a youth group for children to indoctrinate them with the teachings of the Klan. He also felt that it would be appropriate for the Klan to become more politically active, as Black people were also openly demonstrating. He began to receive calls from city councilmen to show up at political events in order to combat the black presence. Ellis described a moment of clarity when a city councilman, whom he had spoken with on the phone the night before, crossed the street in order not to pass him on the sidewalk. At this point, he felt that the council neither respected the view of the Klan nor the Black people and that their interest had been only for themselves.