The Klansman’s Son — Conversations: Truth, Myth & Democracy

The Klansman’s Son — Conversations: Truth, Myth & Democracy

Conversations Series:    • Seen & Unseen — Conversations: Truth,...  

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Join us as Dr. Daniel Barrett moderates this important Conversations discussion with R. Derek Black, an activist and author who shares important insight and lessons for these contentious times. As coded language and creeping authoritarianism spread the ideas of white nationalists, this is an essential book with a powerful voice.

In a provocative new memoir, R. Derek Black (they/them) shares the story of being raised to take over the white nationalist movement in the United States and their journey toward renouncing their family’s beliefs, apologizing for their past actions and their work today as an anti-racist.

Derek’s father, Don Black, was a former Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and started Stormfront, the internet’s first white supremacist website. Young Derek built the kids’ page and their mentor and godfather was David Duke.

While in college in 2013, Derek publicly renounced white nationalism and apologized for their actions and suffering they had caused. The majority of their family stopped speaking to them, and they disappeared into academia, convinced that they had done so much harm that there was no place for them in public life. But in 2016, as Derek recognized the mainstreaming of the hate they had once helped cultivate, they knew they couldn’t stay silent.

Panelists:

R. Derek Black (they/them) 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.

Dr. Daniel W. Barrett is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Western Connecticut State University. A former resident of Redding, he graduated with a BA from Wesleyan University, earned his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Arizona State University and served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Health Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Conversations: Truth, Myth & Democracy is a series of programs co-sponsored by Redding’s League of Women Voters and The Mark Twain Library. Winner of the 2022 Connecticut Library Association’s Award for Excellence in Public Library Service, the series continues the community conversation on issues of race, justice and democracy.


Many thanks to area Libraries and Leagues for their support of this series:
Easton Public Library Weston Public Library Friends of the Weston Public Library Newtown’s C.H. Booth Library Ridgefield Library The League of Women Voters of Weston The League of Women Voters of Ridgefield The League of Women Voters of Northern Fairfield County