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The Klansman’s Son with R. Derek BlackTue, Oct 22 | 7 pm | In-person at the JCC | $10
The Klansman’s Son is an astonishing memoir of a childhood built on fear, and of breaking from a community of hate. 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 — Derek built the kids’ page. David Duke, was also their close family friend and mentor. Racist hatred was all Derek knew.
Then, while in college in 2013, Derek began engaging with students of various religions and races. A Jewish classmate, Matthew Stevenson, bucked campus pressure to ignore and isolate Derek and invited them to Shabbat dinner in his dorm. Derek began joining every week for the conversations and camaraderie. It set them on course to publicly renounce white nationalism and apologize for their actions.
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 traces a uniquely insider account of the rise of white nationalism, and how a child indoctrinated with hate can become an anti-racist adult, committed to combatting antisemitism.
R. Derek Black (they/she) is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Chicago. Since 2016, they have spoken to many
audiences at universities, foundations, institutions, museums,
synagogues, and churches. They received the Elie Wiesel Award and a humanitarian award from the Anti-Defamation League. The Klansman’s Son is their first book.
Black will be interviewed by Suzanne Rothenberg, Associate Regional Director of ADL Midwest. Sponsored by ADL Midwest.
This is a Jewish Book Council Program.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
6701 Hoover Rd, Indianapolis, IN, United States, Indiana 46260
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