| Derek Black | |
| Alma Mater: | New College of Florida |
| Relatives: | Don Black (father) |
Derek Black is an American former white supremacist and memoirist. They are the child of Don Black, founder of the Stormfront online community, and godchild of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. They publicly renounced white nationalism and chronicled their personal journey away from their family's beliefs.[1]
Derek Black was born in 1989 and grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. They attended public school until third grade, when their parents took them out of school because their black teacher said the word "ain't".[2] They were homeschooled and their education was centered on their family's beliefs.[3] Homeschooling gave Derek and their father the chance to become closer. Don Black was able to take Derek with him to conferences, getting them more involved with their family beliefs.
At 10 years old, Derek Black began learning web coding, which later helped them create a page on the Stormfront site for children with similar ideas to theirs. They started a dedicated Lord of the Rings section on the site.[4] They would receive critical emails and death threats,[5] but their father would tell them not to look at the messages, and Derek has said that they were not bothered by what critics were sending them.[2] From 2010 to 2013, they and their father hosted a radio show, the Don and Derek Black show, on Florida-based radio station WPBR/1340 AM, a white nationalist radio show covering national and local news.
After finishing high school, they enrolled in a community college and decided to run for a seat on the Republican executive committee. At 19 years old, they won the seat one of 111 seats with about 60 percent of the vote. The committee refused to seat them because they failed to take their oath.
They later decided that they had an interest in studying medieval European history, so in 2010, they went to the New College of Florida in Sarasota. The college was about a four-hour drive across the state and it was Derek's first time away from their home. They say of their first semesters: "I'd get up in the morning, and call into my dad's radio show ... and talk about the news ... and then go to class and hang out with people who were often strong social justice advocates, and trying to live both of those lives was terrifying because I knew that one day somebody was going to type my name into Google."
Until leaving home, Derek Black's worldview had developed within the insular world of white nationalism where there was never doubt about what whiteness meant in the U.S.[2] Derek grew up strongly believing and promotingthe idea that America was a place reserved for white Europeans and sooner or later everybody else would have to leave. As a white nationalist, Derek did not believe that the white race was above all others but instead thought that the white race should not be surrounded by others. They were known for their suspicion of other races, the U.S. government, tap water, and pop culture. At age 10, they stated: "it is a shame how many White minds are wasted in that system".[2] They told peers at New College that they were pro-choice on abortion, against the death penalty, and did not support the KKK or Nazism or white supremacy.[2] Instead, Derek emphasized that there was a difference between white nationalism and white supremacy, saying their only concern was with "massive immigration and forced integration" and how it would lead to white genocide.[2] They said they respected rights of all races but felt that they would be better off in their own homelands, not living together.
Once their beliefs and ongoing participation in promoting them became public knowledge at college, they were ostracized by most of the community. In May 2013, Derek Black started to befriend several Jewish people on campus, and gradually realized that their own beliefs were wrong after attending multiple Friday night dinners with Jewish friends.[6]
They recalled of these dinners:
In 2013, Derek wrote a public statement to the Southern Poverty Law Center, publicly renouncing their views. In a 2017 interview, they said: "I wanted them to know that I understood what we believed, and I was systematically disbelieving each point." Derek was very hesitant to "drive a wedge" in the relationship between themself and their family, especially their father.
When Don Black learned of Derek's renunciation of his beliefs, he began to distance himself from Derek, not being sure whether to defend them or to shun them completely. Derek tried to convince their father to re-examine his beliefs, but failed.
In May 2024, Derek released a memoir titled The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism. In the book, Derek came out as transgender, using they/them and she/her pronouns.[7]
Derek Black's mother, Chloe Black, is an executive assistant for the founder of the Florida Crystals company and owns a real estate business in Latin American countries.[8] She has also served as spokeswoman for a charter school, Glades Academy in Pahokee, Florida, financed by Florida Crystals with the aim of lifting minority children out of poverty.[9] Before her marriage to Don Black, she was married to David Duke.[10]
Their father, Don Black, who founded the website Stormfront, remains a white supremacist.[11] He was also a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s (for a time, the ANP was known as the National Socialist White Peoples' Party). In 1981, he was convicted of attempting an overthrow of the government of the island country of Dominica using firearms and served three years in jail, from 1981 to 1984.