a turning point and a journey from white nationalism to anti—racism. today, we have that extraordinary story of race, politics and ultimately turning against what your family stands for. how does a transformation like that come about? what can we learn from it? and has derek black found a new purpose as well as a new identity? derek black, welcome to hardtalk. your book is called the klansman�*s son, and your family as a whole

were close to david duke, who's one of the most notorious ku klux klan leaders. the anti—defamation league has called him perhaps america's best known racist and anti—semite. describe for us first the home and the environment in which you grew up, in florida in the 1990s. right, thanks for having me. i grew up in a place that i think often doesn't look like what most people expect. it was relatively urban. it was in south florida, it was very racially diverse. i lived in a neighbourhood with people from lots of different countries, and although i grew up in an anti—semitic movement, there was a very largejewish population in the area. and that was ok for my family, because their world view is what separated them from the rest of the country. it was that they saw themselves as a part of a movement that they had been building since decades before i was born, and they wanted to continue it into the future. and they married other

people in the movement. they went to conferences with other people in the movement. they advanced their lives around that idea of this movement. you describe them, i think, as the founders of a new generation of... of the future, if you like, of what the ku klux klan evolved into. describe that, then. were they white supremacists or white nationalists? how did they see themselves? and how... what kind of rhetoric did they espouse? i try to separate white nationalism — or some people call the same movement "white power" — from white supremacy. white supremacy is exactly what their beliefs are based in — racism and anti—semitism. but i try to use this word "white nationalism" that they use because it defines this social movement that there are only thousands, or maybe tens of thousands of people who identify as being a part of the movement. and that's separate from just racism or structural things, or the way that society gets built to advantage white people.

their beliefs come from that society, and they all grew up in relatively normal environments and then became much more extreme and found each other. and i think if we don't understand it as a movement of people who know each other, we don't recognise the sort of political and really violent danger that can come from it. but there is a racial hierarchy within it where white people are at the top. it's an ideology that is based on the idea of white supremacy. they believe that race defines humanity across the world, and they believe that there is a jewish conspiracy — basically, alljewish people in the world — to advance immigration and advocate for civil rights and anti—racism. it's deeply conspiratorial, and it's one that has not advanced past i9th—century science and doesn't recognise that race is this social idea, not a biological one. and you believed in all of this. you were obviously a child at the time, but you're in documentaries — aged about 11, i think — saying, "i would not

like to live with non—whites because they don't have the same values, ideals and beliefs that i have." right. i gave my first interview on national television in the united states with my dad when i was ten years old, and i remember feeling really engaged. he asked me over and over, "you sure you want to do this?" and i was enthusiastic. i wanted to be a part of his movement. i had seen him giving interviews my whole life up until that point, and i believed in the ideology as much as a ten—year—old can believe in anything. and then the decade that followed that, i continued giving interviews, i continued advocating, and i eventually got to a place where i thought, "ah, this is my movement. this is something that they may have been building for a0 years before me, but i see this way forward." and so as a teenager, i ranfor office, and ran... aged about 19 in 2008. you try, don't you, to actually take your platform into republican party politics?

mm—hm. and you are successful. i was. it was a small local florida election, and it was the same election year that barack obama won the presidency. and i wanted to campaign on the same issues that white nationalists like david duke had done decades before and sort of demonstrate that those messages could be really effective, even in the same year that barack obama was winning the national presidency. did you feel threatened by him? i saw obama's victory as a growth factor for this movement. at the time, i was going around telling white nationalists, "the backlash to this election is going to be massive," and it was. it... they gained more membership, more visits to their websites, more energy and money than they had ever had before to the backlash to a black president. so you are fuelling the idea that a black president is threatening to your view of the world? yeah, it was... exactly, it was something that motivated the movement

and it was something that motivated my family. you... the seat you won was on palm beach county, on the republican executive committee for palm beach county in florida. essentially, the local republicans, conscious of the world that you came from, blocked you... right. ..from going any further. that was that was rooted, wasn't it, in the notoriety of your family as well as the movement, particularly the website that your father founded and that i think he's still the proprietor of, which is stormfront? yes. tell us about stormfront. you knew all about it because you ran the kids�* pages of stormfront as a teenager? yeah. i had started the kids�* page on stormfront when i was ten, right before i gave my first interview. it was the first white nationalist website on the internet, the first community for people to come together. and it created this big umbrella where people from all different branches of white nationalism could join in this political movement that called itself white nationalism, called itself white power. and the book is called the klansman�*s son

because my family had founded a ku klux klan organisation, this old american terrorist organisation, to try to create politics, and then had left it when they decided it wouldn't work in modern politics. what stormfront did was bring together nazis and ku klux klan people and disaffected youth and tenured professors, all under the same umbrella of the same movement. and you, again, were part of all of that. and the website, indeed, is very much still accessible today. it calls itself, on the home page, "the voice of the new embattled white minority". on the kids�* pages, what kinds of things did you put on there? my parents had taken me out of school when i was nine, and so that was the first thing that i wrote about — that i had left school, which was very diverse, very multiracial, and my family explicitly said they were taking me out of school because they did not want me to be in a multiracial environment. and what i was writing about was the idea that we weren�*t

allowed to learn about culture or heritage or be proud of ourselves. and so when i was ten years old, i was writing this idea that it was all about pride. it was just about feeling good about your family and your history, and it was not about hate, which is exactly what my family said. there was obviously a change in your life. that�*s... that�*s what you document in the book. and it happened after you went to college... mm—hm. ..around 2010. now, when you first went to college, was it a double life? you went to college in florida, but you were still appearing on your radio show. were you disguising your identity in some way? cos there�*s all kinds of, erm, deeply inflammatory — and in many cases, absolutely inaccurate — rhetoric about crime and race that you�*re still talking about in this period while you�*re at college. i didn�*t exactly disguise my identity, ijust didn�*t bring it up. and nobody googled me for that first semester. i got there and i had sort of tried to live two

lives most of my life. i had started a personal web page the year before i started a white nationalist one as a kid, and on that one, i wrote about my hobbies and tornadoes and spider—man, and on the white nationalist one, i wrote about racism. and i still had that when i was in my early 20s. i showed up at college and i wanted to talk about what we had in common, and i increasingly realised that this was a community that was committed to anti—racism and social justice. and when they found out what i was keeping from them, it wasn�*t going to be something they could just move past. by this period, stormfront users — people who had spent time on the website founded by your father — had already committed murders. there was one in 2009 where three police officers were killed in pittsburgh by a man called richard poplawski. and then there was the absolutely searing moment in norway in 2011 when anders breivik, a man who had spent many hours on stormfront, killed 77 people, many of them... many of them children. many of them very young.

do you remember that moment? do you remember hearing about it? you were still in the movement at the time. yeah. what happened ? violence from this movement was so common my entire life. it was something that...we rationalised, my family rationalised, because they explicitly banned violent rhetoric on stormfront, on my dad�*s website. people could be banned for that. and breivik wasn�*t banned because he never said anything explicitly violent. hejust said everything else about this ideology that i was growing up in, and that ideology named its enemies. it said, "who shouldn�*t be here? who didn�*t belong?" muslims. breivik. . .. breivik talked about norway being flooded by muslims. all of his murders, he justified with exactly the ideology that my family and i were advocating. and yet, every time murders like this would happen, they would say, well,

they condemned violence, so therefore, this one psychopath is not their responsibility. and it was something that was so cold and so hard to rationalise that it did eat away at me in a way that i felt like i could just accept — "well, my family is condemning this violence, and yet this movement..." and getting close to a college community of people who i cared about, i knew, i loved, who... many of them were not white, many of them werejewish, and they felt afraid of what i represented and, if not specifically me, they felt afraid of the people in this movement who commit mass murders regularly and the fact that i was connecting them, connecting this campus to that world. publicly, yourfather, don black, has said about stormfront that the number of killings that are associated with his website is as high as it is, which is close to 100, because of breivik and him being responsible for murdering 77 people. he said, "we�*ve had

a few people who�*ve gone on shooting sprees." most were domestic issues "that didn�*t have anything to do with politics". when you look back now, do you think that you, because you were a part of what stormfront was putting out, that you have a responsibility over what breivik did? i certainly feel an enormous amount of guilt for everything that i wrote as a teenager, and especially in later years, because i advanced ideas, concepts like white genocide, which is exactly what motivated breivik. this idea thatjust immigration and intermarriage is genocide to people is something that white nationalists use to justify any action, they use to justify any amount of violence. and the fact that i put things out that i could never take back is something that i�*m committed — and i have been for the decade since i�*ve condemned white nationalism — to advancing the cause against it. but no matter what i do,

i can never take back any essay i wrote or any person who i persuaded to get involved in this movement. it�*s diffuse and i can�*t always trace it, but feeling that responsibility is something that i�*ve never been able to rationalise or move past. is it... is it a real transformation? because i think some people, especially if they know even from beyond this interview about your past, will really struggle to reconcile it with what you are saying now. how exactly did it come about? breivik was a searing moment. what about the people around you at college in florida? it was that community that i sat with for years who caused me to change my life. it was an experience where i had gotten to know them, and it wasjust a small community. it was a group of people who are now some of the most

important in my life, but they were people who cared about the world around them and they also cared about each other. and i was a person who represented the terror and fear that they�*d had their whole lives, many of them. and yet i was saying, "i�*m somebody who cares about you personally, i want to be a good friend." and they said, "well, how can you be a good friend and be representing and advocating a belief system that says i don�*t belong?" and the feeling that i don�*t want to be that person came a lot sooner than the rationality. and there�*s this lesson that i look back on it. it took me years of sitting in private conversations with one specific person i met at shabbat dinners that i had been invited to on campus... friday night dinners. friday night observant jewish dinners, yeah. is this allison, who�*s now your wife? yeah. who had to sit with me and talk about all the supposed facts that i thought backed up my belief system. i didn�*t want to be a person who caused harm to other people, who caused fear to people i cared about. i wanted to be expansive. and yet i believe that i had justified race as this biological fact,

that all these old men who were tenured professors and condemned as white supremacists must be the truth tellers. and i had to sit for years, one piece at a time, learning that the statistics that they cited were false, learning that their arguments for biological race were just ridiculous and had been disproven 100 times. even in this period, derek, when you are going through what you�*re describing, you go and spend time with david duke, don�*t you? you spend several days with david duke? yeah. you speak of your... at the point you publicly renounce your past, you also speak of your respect for your father. mm—hm. what�*s going on there? no, i still love my family, and i still... respect is different, isn�*t it? respect means you stand for something that i think is admirable. mmm... i definitely don�*t mean it in that way. i mean it in the fact that my family are people who certainly don�*t see themselves as the villains, and theirjustification of things that is horrendous is something that i can

never look away from, and yet i grew up around them and saw them having this sense of right and wrong and conviction to other people that i... the lessons that i took away from it were exactly what you�*re asking. it�*s that i had broken down all the facts. ididn�*t... there was no evidence for racism. it�*s an easily disprovable world view. it�*s one that�*s social and just based in oppression. but even at the point when i knew there was no argument for it, even at the point that i knew it was morally wrong and that my family were just callous for continuing to harm people by advocating this, it was at that moment that i had to recognise that i still didn�*t want to condemn their belief system, even though i didn�*t believe it, because i didn�*t want to lose the community. and that was a moment that was... it sort of shattered my view of myself. when you publicly renounced your family and your past,

what was their reaction? it was horror and long conversations for a week about whether there was any chance at communication between us or whether there was any connection that we had... and is there? ..going forward. is there communication today? they did. they chose that week, a decade ago, that they wanted to still be in communication. it was something that i appreciated, but it�*s never been close. it�*s always been calls on holidays and birthdays, sort of conversations that have always centred around the sort of bafflement that they have that they could even be close to somebody who didn�*t believe their world view. they try not to even be friends with people who do not exist within this movement that they lived in. your mother said, "i think you need to find a new family." yeah. and yourfather said it would have been better if you hadn�*t been born.

mmm, yeah. that was their immediate reaction to writing a letter. i�*d written a letter condemning their world view and saying that i was sorry for everything i had done to advance it, and they saw me as, like, on the other side immediately because their world is one with people who are allies and people who are enemies, and i had just crossed over. a few years ago, around 2016, just at the point that you thought white nationalism was essentially on the way out, you see a resurgence. just describe that resurgence in the form it takes. yeah. when i had condemned it three years before that, and my initial desire was just to never talk publicly about it again. i thought i had done so much harm that it was hypocritical to even try. and it was naive. but i believe that maybe i had just been wrong. maybe this movement hadn�*t had any power. maybe it had been insular. maybe it was mostly old people

who were just going to, you know, age out. maybe younger people were against racism. and it was the donald trump election in 2015 and 2016 that made me realise that it was irresponsible — and not moral, but cowardly — to continue being silent, because this movement was the one place in american society that would always champion openly racist and anti—semitic ideas. and their theory of that was playing out in front of me because they created talking points, they created membership organisations, they advanced causes that were then being picked up in more mainstream parts of the right. their vision for a political victory, i don�*t think, has ever felt closer in my lifetime than it has these last few years. but then what specifically is your warning? because people who are on the right of politics in america, donald trump himself has said he condemns white supremacism. are you saying that it is the use of the same rhetoric

that really worries you, when you hear people talking about the poisoning of the country or of vermin coming in? i think, to be clear, even the white nationalist movement says they condemn white supremacy. they say they condemn hate and racism. there�*s nobody who says that they are a white supremacist or a racist. even the people who are always say they are not, because the way this movement works is, they�*re not powerful because they have millions of members or massive voter turnout or huge organisations. they�*re powerful because their ideas exist in much more common, latent ways in a society that�*s deeply unequal. and by being the people who are willing to be called racist and then tell other people that they don�*t have to feel bad about it, they don�*t have to change, that�*s where their power comes from. it�*s because they�*re not

alien to their society. they come out of itjust like everybody else does, and they make something that should die away, that should never have existed, they make it a powerful movement. and you today, when you�*ve been brought up in this movement... and we all absorb the beliefs, don�*t we, of our families? and you�*ve clearly been on a journey since. but i wonder if you still struggle with yourself at times. whether you�*re watching something on television or even you�*re looking down the street, do you have to sometimes battle your old prejudices? i mean, i would definitely be lying if i said i didn�*t have to deal with stereotypes and trying to move past them. for years after i condemned white nationalism, i did struggle with exactly what you�*re talking about, the sense that, "how do i decide what i believe?" because i thought i was right before. and it wasn�*t something that made me question anti—racism. it was something that made me question my own

sense of convictions. and where i landed is something that i still remind myself of, which is that any belief can be tested against whether it feels like something that closes me off to other people, or whether it is something that helps me try to reach out, even ifjust in my mind, to other people, to people who i don�*t know how i�*m connected to, to people who i haven�*t met before, to try to understand, how can i feel connected or emotionally responsible? you haven�*t managed it, have you, with your own parents, with the people that you know really well, where you know the pressure points? and if you haven�*t managed it with them, and in that relationship where you say there is still love, then how is it possible with others to change beliefs? it�*s not assured to ever change people�*s beliefs. i think that it�*s always possible. i know that�*s true, and i don�*t even think it�*s something to do with being young. i think anyone at any age can fundamentally change what they believe. but...

..the lesson that i took is that it�*s rare, because changing our minds about something that�*s really core to who we are is exactly the same thing as changing our sense of who we feel connected to, who our broader community is, who are the people we love. and if we understand it that way, you recognise why it�*s so rare, but also why it always happens. so perhaps your parents haven�*t started thinking yet? they haven�*t changed their community. they know me, but their community is white nationalists. and i think as long as that�*s the case, there�*s no reason for somebody to challenge their own beliefs. derek black, thank you for being with us on hardtalk. your book is called the klansman�*s son: myjourney from white nationalism to anti—racism. thank you. thanks so much.

hello, there. having just had one of the wettest and dullest springs on record, i�*m sure if you got 12 hours of sunshine, you�*d take it. that�*s exactly what we had on wednesday through the isle of man. a chilly day, but a beautiful day in terms of sunshine. slightly different story further north and west — temperatures struggled in parts of scotland to get up into double figures, and there was a rash of sharp showers, as well. that�*s because scotland and northern ireland, you�*re closest to this area of low pressure, and a brisk northwesterly wind continues to feed showers in around that low. so we start off on a chilly note first thing on thursday morning. sunny spells and scattered showers through scotland and northern ireland — fairly widespread throughout the day. further south, after a cloudy start, the cloud should break up, some sunshine come through. there�*s always a risk of one or two isolated showers across england and wales,

but hopefully they�*ll be few and far between. and with a little more shelter in the south east, we could see temperatures peaking at 18 degrees. fresher on those exposed north west coasts. 0nly14 degrees in northern ireland — cooler perhaps on the exposed north coast — and in scotland, we�*re looking at 10 to 1a degrees with those showers continuing on and off throughout the day. now, as we move out of thursday into friday, we see more of an organised line of rain developing, but that is where that cooler air is going to sit into the far northwest. temperatures just below par for the time of year further south, but there are indications of some warmer weather arriving over the next few days. but to start with, we�*re looking at single figures first thing on friday morning in rural parts of scotland — low single figures not out of the question once again. and there will be some rain moving its way south and east out of scotland, down into the north of england and north wales. sunny spells and a few scattered showers ahead of it. still a rash of showers — particularly to the northwest of the great glen —

where here temperatures will sit around ten or 11 degrees. further south, we�*re going to see highs of 18 celsius once again. so the temperatures pretty much stuck in a rut. weak weather front bringing some cloud to begin with across the south for the weekend. that low pressure is gradually pulling away, so hopefully high pressure will tend to build, but we keep the risk of showers once again across scotland and northern ireland. somewhat drier and brighter, but not necessarily warmer further south.

live from london, this is bbc news. western leaders are gathering today in france to mark the 80th aniversary of the d—day landing which changed the course of the second world war. these are live pictures from normandy as preparations get under way. the un chief anthony guterres calls for a global ban on fossil fuel advertising to help protect the climate. and boeing launches its

long—delayed starliner capsule towards the international space station with two nasa astronauts on board. hello, i�*m sally bundock. very one welcome to the programme. let�*s go live to normandy and see the pictures we are receiving from the beaches where world leaders and veterans will gather later today to mark the 80th anniversary of the d—day landings on the 6th ofjune 1944, when more than 150,000 allied soldiers invaded france in a major turning point of world war ii. us presidentjoe biden, who�*s on a state visit to france, will be among the 11,500 guests expected.

as well as