Don Black (white supremacist)

Don Black
(2007)
6th Grand Wizard of the
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
In office
1979/1980–1981
Preceded by David Duke
Succeeded by position abolished
Personal details
Born Stephen Donald Black
(1953-07-28) July 28, 1953
Athens, Alabama
Nationality American
Political party American Nazi Party
Spouse(s) Chloe Black[1]
Children Derek Black[2]
Residence West Palm Beach, Florida
Alma mater University of Alabama[3]
Occupation Database analyst
Known for Stormfront[4]
Website Stormfront

Stephen Donald Black[5] (born July 28, 1953) is an American white supremacist.[6][7] He is the founder, and current webmaster of the anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, Holocaust denial and racist Stormfront internet forum.[8][9][10][11] He was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s,[12][13] though at the time he was a member it was known as the 'National Socialist White Peoples' Party'.[14] He was convicted in 1981 of attempting an armed overthrow of the government in the island of Dominica in violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act.[15][16]

Early life

Black was born in Athens, Alabama, and became a white supremacy advocate at an early age when he began passing out racist newspapers White Power and the Thunderbolt at his high school. This led to a decision by the local school board to ban the distribution of political literature. Black countered by mailing literature to student addresses obtained from school handbooks.

In the summer of 1970, after his junior year at Athens High School, Black traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to work on the gubernatorial campaign of J. B. Stoner, a segregationist and leader of the National States' Rights Party (NSRP). It was in this election that Jimmy Carter won the Georgia governorship. Black was asked to obtain a copy of the NSRP membership list by Robert Lloyd, a leader of the National Socialist White People's Party, formerly known as the American Nazi Party.[17] At the time, Black was a member of the Party's youth branch, the National Socialist Youth Movement.

Also working on the Stoner campaign was Jerry Ray, brother of Martin Luther King's assassin James Earl Ray. On July 25, 1970, Jerry Ray shot Black (who was 16 at the time) in the chest with a .38-caliber hollow-point bullet to stop him from taking files from Stoner's campaign office.[18] Ray was acquitted of all charges, saying he shot in self-defense after Black reached for what appeared to be a weapon.[19][20][21]

Black finished his senior year at Madison Academy (Alabama), a private school in Huntsville. Then after high school, Black graduated from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1975.[3]

The Ku Klux Klan and Operation Red Dog

Black joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1975, one year after David Duke took over the organization. He moved to Birmingham to become the group's state organizer. After the resignation of Duke in 1978, Black became Grand Wizard, or national director, of the Klan. In 1979, he ran for mayor of Birmingham, receiving 2.5 percent of the vote.[22] Richard Arrington, Jr. won the mayoral election, becoming Birmingham's first African American mayor.[23]

On April 27, 1981, Black and nine other would-be mercenaries – many recruited from Klan affiliated organizations – were arrested in New Orleans as they prepared to board a boat stocked with weapons and ammunition to invade the island nation Dominica in what they would call Operation Red Dog.[24] Local media would label the botched attempt the "Bayou of Pigs", a play on words for the unsuccessful 1961 "Bay of Pigs Invasion" of Cuba.

Black later explained the invasion as an attempt to set up an anti-communist regime, saying, "What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government,"[13] The invasion was intended to restore former prime minister Patrick John to the mostly black Caribbean island. Prosecutors said the real purpose for the invasion would have been to set up tourism, gambling, offshore banking, and timber logging operations on the impoverished island.

In 1981, Black was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the attempted invasion and his violation of the Neutrality Act.[25][26] Black, Federal Bureau of Prisons #16692-034, was released on November 15, 1984.[27] During his time in federal prison Black took computer programming classes which led him to establish Stormfront on the Internet years later.[13]

He ran for office in Alabama, this time as a Populist Party US Senate candidate.[28][29]

Stormfront

In 1995, Black founded Stormfront, which was the internet's first major racial hate site. To date, it remains one of the most popular online resources for those drawn to racial ideologies.[30] The site featured the writings of William Luther Pierce and David Duke as well as works by the Institute for Historical Review and the Culture of Critique series. Initially, along with these articles, Stormfront housed a library of white pride, neo-Nazi and white power skinhead graphics for downloading, and a number of links to other white nationalist websites.

In a 1998 interview for the alternative weekly newspaper Miami New Times, Black is quoted as saying "We want to take America back. We know a multicultural Yugoslav nation can't hold up for too long. Whites won't have any choice but to take military action. It's our children whose interests we have to defend."[13]

In 1999, Black created the website "martinlutherking.org", which is administered by Stormfront.[31] This innocuous appearing website ostensibly was created to malign the character of King.

In December 2007, Black gained attention for donating money to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential run.[32]

In 2008, Black said that the establishment of white pride as a special interest group within the Republican Party is crucial.[33] Asked by an interviewer for Italian newspaper la Repubblica if Stormfront was not just the new Ku Klux Klan, Black responded affirmatively, though he noted that he would never say so to an American journalist.[33]

On May 5, 2009 it was announced that Black was one of 22 on a British Home Office list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom[34] for "promoting serious criminal activity and fostering hatred that might lead to inter-community violence".[5][35]

The Stormfront forum acts as one of the largest online gatherings of Holocaust deniers in the world, with hundreds of thousands of views on threads about revising World War II history. A number of radio shows published by Black's web site have featured Holocaust denial themes.

Don Black (middle) standing with his son Derek (right) and American politician Ron Paul in 2007.

Family

In 2008, it was revealed Black's wife, Chloe, works as an executive assistant for sugar baron José Fanjul who runs the Florida Crystals company and owns a real estate business in Latin American countries.[1] In particular, her job duties included acting as the spokesperson for a charter school "to lift underprivileged black and Hispanic children out of poverty."[36]

The story was successively reported by Gawker, the New York Post, the Palm Beach Post, and Fox News, and resulted in Black being criticized by some other white nationalists.[36][37][38][39][40] Chloe was previously married to David Duke.[1]

In August 2008 Black's 19-year-old son Derek was elected to one of 111 seats on the Palm Beach County, Florida, Republican committee, with 167 of 287 votes.[2][41][42] The committee however, refused to seat Black, citing a loyalty oath he failed to sign before registering his candidacy. The oath states candidates must refrain from activities "likely to injure the name of the Republican Party."[2] He hosted the Derek Black Show weekdays on a local West Palm Beach, Florida, AM radio station, WPBR, to which Don Black paid $600 a week to broadcast content on. The radio show concluded in January 2013, with Derek Black appearing on few episodes over the last year.[43]

By summer 2013, Derek Black had called into question his racist ideologies,[44][45] and he began to renounce white supremacism and issued an apology to those harmed by his previous actions and beliefs.[46][47] His renunciation reportedly shocked his father and like-minded people.[48] By 2016 Derek Black had fully renounced his white nationalist views and was actively speaking out against such views in the press.[49][50][51]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Billionaire won't fire assistant for KKK link". New York Post. October 8, 2010. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 Cave, Damien (December 12, 2008). "A Local Election's Results Raise Major Questions on Race". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  3. 1 2 "Don Black / Stormfront". Anti-Defamation League. 2012. Archived from the original on August 18, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2012.
  4. ↑ Michael Wines and Stephanie Saul (July 5, 2015). "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites". The New York Times. Retrieved July 6, 2015. ...he later ushered in the movement’s Internet era with Stormfront.org in 1995….
  5. 1 2 "UK 'least wanted' list published", BBC News, May 5, 2009. Retrieved on 2009-05-06.
  6. ↑ Swain, Carol Miller; Russ Nieli (2003). Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America. Cambridge University Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-521-81673-1.
  7. ↑ Daniels, Jessie (2009). Cyber racism: white supremacy online and the new attack on civil rights. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-7425-6158-8.
  8. ↑ Sources which consider Stormfront a white supremacist website are:
    • New Times Feb. 19–25, 1998 article "The Racist Next Door"
    • Etchingham, Julie (January 12, 2000). "Hate.com expands on the net". BBC News. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
    • Lloyd, Robin (August 12, 1999). "Web trackers hunt racist groups online". CNN. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
    • "Hate on the World Wide Web:A Brief Guide to Cyberspace Bigotry". Anti-Defamation League. October 1998. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
    • "Jena Rally Sparks White Supremacist Rage, Lynching Threat". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 20, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
    • Ripley, Amanda (March 7, 2005). "The Bench Under Siege". Time Magazine. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
    • "Hate on the Net". Retrieved January 29, 2008.
    • Scheneider, Keith (March 13, 1995). "Hate Groups Use Tools Of the Electronic Trade". The New York Times. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
  9. ↑ Finlay, Andrew (2004). Nationalism and Multiculturalism: Irish Identity, Citizenship and the Peace Process. p. 92.
  10. ↑ Mur, Cindy (2005). Does the Internet benefit society?. Greenhaven Press. p. 30.
  11. ↑ Johns, Amelia (1 July 2015). ISS 18 Battle for the Flag. Melbourne University Press.
  12. ↑ Etchingham, Julie (January 12, 2000). "Hate.com expands on the net". BBC News. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
  13. 1 2 3 4 David Schwab Abel (February 19, 1998). "The Racist Next Door". Miami New Times. Missing or empty |url= (help); |access-date= requires |url= (help) (Stormfront copy of original article. Alternate link available here.)
  14. ↑ Bridges, Tyler The Rise of David Duke University Press of Mississippi (Sep 1995) ISBN 978-0-87805-684-2 p.40
  15. ↑ Lloyd, Robin (August 12, 1999). "Web trackers hunt racist groups online". CNN. Retrieved September 14, 2007.
  16. ↑ McKelvey, Tara (August 16, 2001). "Father and son team on hate site". USA Today. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
  17. ↑ H. Michael Barrett. "The 1970 Split In The NSWPP: A First Hand Account"
  18. ↑ "Hate Website Stormfront Sees Rapid Growth of Neo-Nazi Community". Intelligence Report. 2005. Retrieved July 2, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Man Acquitted Of Shooting Nazi". The Dispatch. November 25, 1970. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Jerry Ray Acquitted". The Times-News (Hendersonville, North Carolina). November 25, 1970.
  21. ↑ "Earl Ray's Kin Acquitted On Assault Charge," Press-Courier, November 27, 1970
  22. ↑ "Parsons, Arrington In Runoff," Gadsden Times, October 11, 1979
  23. ↑ "Birmingham Gets First Black Mayor," Eugene Register-Guard, October 31, 1979
  24. ↑ Operation Red Dog is the subject of Stewart Bell, Bayou of Pigs: The True Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island into a Criminal Paradise (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).
  25. ↑ "Conspirators Get Three Years," Star-News, July 23, 1981
  26. ↑ "U.S. Prosectors Pushing Hunt for Backers of Dominica Coup," Record-Journal, June 22, 1981
  27. ↑ "Stephen D Black." Federal Bureau of Prisons. Retrieved on December 2, 2010.
  28. ↑ "Fringe Party Offers Help to Candidate," Miami Herald - August 11, 1990
  29. ↑ "Klansmen See Populist Party as Best Vechile, Candidate Says," South Florida Sun - Sentinel, April 16, 1990
  30. ↑ Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. The Scope of Tolerance: Studies on the costs of free expression and freedom of the press. Routledge, 2005. 254.
  31. ↑ Ibanga, Imaeyen (June 12, 2009). "Hate Groups Effectively Use Web as a Recruiting Tool", abcnews.go.com; accessed May 27, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Floridatoday.com". Archived from the original on January 25, 2008. Retrieved September 12, 2017.
  33. 1 2 Mario Calabresi (October 29, 2008). "Fermeremo Barack Obama siamo il nuovo Ku Klux Klan". la Repubblica. Retrieved November 17, 2008. Quote from Black: "Non è più tempo per cercare di creare un terzo partito destinato alla marginalità, dobbiamo presentarci ad ogni elezione primaria dentro il partito repubblicano così da imporre i nostri temi nel dibattito, dobbiamo lavorare per creare un nostro gruppo di interesse, per restaurare le tradizioni e i veri valori bianchi". This translates as: "There is no more time to try to create a third party for the marginalized, we must enter every primary election within the Republican Party to impose our issues in the debate, we must work to create our special interest group, to restore tradition and true white values."
  34. ↑ "Home Office name hate promoters excluded from the UK" Archived May 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine., Home Office Press Release, May 5, 2009
  35. ↑ "Who is on UK 'least wanted' list?", BBC News, May 5, 2009. Retrieved on 2009-05-06.
  36. 1 2 "Woman With Ties to White Supremacists Represents School for Blacks and Hispanics". Fox News. July 30, 2008.
  37. ↑ Heidi Beirich (July 28, 2008). "Stormfront Founder's Wife Sets Off Firestorm". Splcenter.org. Archived from the original on August 5, 2008.
  38. ↑ John Lantigua (July 26, 2008). "Local organizer, other supremacists say Obama's run boosts their cause". The Palm Beach Post. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011.
  39. ↑ Wtf: The Socialite's Nazi Publicist Archived July 28, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.. gawker.com. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  40. ↑ "Sugar Baron Aide's KKK link". New York Post. July 19, 2008.
  41. ↑ ADL.org Archived July 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  42. ↑ "Black & White". Toronto Star, pages IN6-7. Eli Saslow.
  43. ↑ "Contributions in July". Stormfront.org. January 17, 2012. Retrieved July 20, 2012.
  44. ↑ Potok, Mark. "Derek Black: Have Stormfront Founder's Son's Politics Changed?". SPLC. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
  45. ↑ Barbaro, Michael. "'The Daily' Transcript: Interview With Former White Nationalist Derek Black". NYT. The New York Times. Retrieved Dec 27, 2017.
  46. ↑ Black, Derek (July 15, 2013). "Letter to Mark Potok of Hatewatch" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 10, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2013.
  47. ↑ Potok, Mark. "Activist Son of Key Racist Leader Renounces White Nationalism". Retrieved July 17, 2013.
  48. ↑ Potok, Mark. "Racists React With Shock, Anger to Fellow Activist's Renunciation". SPLC. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved July 18, 2013.
  49. ↑ Saslow, Eli. "National The white flight of Derek Black". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  50. ↑ Black, R. Derek. "Why I Left White Nationalism". The New York Times. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  51. ↑ "Take the Money and Run: How Don Black's Son Escaped the White Supremacist Movement He was Born to Inherit". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 27, 2016.

Further reading

  • Swain, Carol M.; Russ Nieli (March 24, 2003). Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81673-4.
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