Adrianne Black

Adrianne Black (born Derek Roland Black, 1989) is an American memoirist and former white supremacist. She is the child of Don Black, founder of the Stormfront online community, and godchild of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Black publicly renounced white nationalism and chronicled her personal journey away from her family's beliefs, surprising many, especially her parents.

Adrianne Black was born in Florida in 1989 and grew up in West Palm Beach. She attended public school until third grade, when her parents took her out of school because her black teacher said the word "ain't". She was homeschooled and her education was centered on her family's beliefs.

At 10 years old, Black began learning web coding, which later helped her create a page on the Stormfront site for children with similar ideas to hers. She started a dedicated Lord of the Rings section on the site. She would receive critical emails and death threats, but her father would tell her not to look at the messages, and Black has said that she was not bothered by what critics were sending her. From 2010 to 2013, she and her 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, she enrolled in a community college and decided to run for a seat on the Republican executive committee. At 19 years old, she won the seat – one of 111 seats – with about 60 percent of the vote. However, the committee refused to seat Black.

She later decided that she had an interest in studying medieval European history, so in 2010, she went to the New College of Florida in Sarasota. The college was about a four-hour drive across the state and it was Black's first time away from her home. She says of her 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, 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. She was known for her suspicion of other races, the U.S. government, tap water, and pop culture. At age 10, she stated: "it is a shame how many White minds are wasted in that system". She told peers at New College that she was pro-choice on abortion, against the death penalty, and did not support the KKK or Nazism or white supremacy. Instead, Black emphasized that there was a difference between white nationalism and white supremacy, saying her only concern was with "massive immigration and forced integration" and how it would lead to white genocide. She said she respected rights of all races but felt that they would be better off in their own homelands, not living together.

Once her beliefs – and ongoing participation in promoting them – became public knowledge at college, she was ostracized by most of the community. In May 2013, Black started to befriend several Jewish people on campus, and gradually realized that her own beliefs were wrong after attending multiple Friday night dinners with Jewish friends.

She recalled of these dinners: