A Conversation with Derek Black, author, The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism: A Memoir

Join Michael in his conversation with Professor author Derek Black about their new memoir, The Klansman’s Son, My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism which tells their journey from the heir apparent leader of the White Nationalist movement in the United States to one of the country’s leading antiracist spokespersons.

Derek Black was raised to take over the white nationalist movement in the United States. Their father, Don Black, was a former Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and started Stormfront, the internet’s first white supremacist website on which Derek built the kids’ page. David Duke, was also their close family friend and mentor. Racist hatred, often wrapped up in language of respectability, was all Derek knew.

In 2013, while studying medieval history at New College in Sarasota, FL Derek publicly renounced white nationalism and apologized for their actions and the suffering that they had caused. The majority of their family stopped speaking to them, and they disappeared into academia, convinced that they had done so much harm that there was no place for them in public life.

But in 2016, as they watched the rise of Donald Trump, they immediately recognized what they were hearing—the spread and mainstreaming of the hate they had helped cultivate—and they knew that they couldn’t stay silent.

Derek, who uses the pronouns “they and them”, is a doctoral student in history at the University of Chicago. Derek has been honored with the first Elie Wiesel Award given by the Wiesel family after the passing of the Nobel Peace Laureate in 2016. Derek also has received the Anti-Defamation League’s Humanitarian award.

This is Derek’s first book.

Derek Black

https://x.com/rderekblack

The Klansman’s Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism: A Memoir

https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/klansmans-son_9781419764783/

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