Derek Black’s father is Don Black, the organizer of “Stormfront,” a white nationalist collection of blogs, chat rooms, and streaming radio that is considered a leading hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks these things. Stormfront rants against Muslims, globalists, Jews, blacks, and immigrants–all the usual suspects.
Derek himself appeared with his father on the Don and Derek Black Show. He was a smart kid who changed the emphasis of Stormfront. He said the members were not against anyone, but were just trying to protect the interests of white heritage and culture.
Derek attended a local community college where he got straight A’s. In 2020 he transferred to New College of Florida, the honors college of the state university system. He was a guy who easily made friends, including an immigrant from Peru, and...a Jewish girlfriend. Conflicted, as you can imagine, he told his dad his studies made it difficult for him to appear on the radio show.
At his girlfriend Allison’s urging, he eventually decided to write a statement about his evolution. “I am sorry for the damage done by my actions. I realize not all will instantly believe me, or may perceive this as a seemingly abrupt change when it has been instead a gradual awakening process. I understand that my words won’t suddenly heal all wounds.”
He then sent it to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Info for this post is from Adam Hochschild’s review of Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow (Doubleday). The review can be found in The New York Review of Books, Sept. 26, 2019, pp. 72-73.
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