From a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter the powerful story of how a prominent white supremacist
changed his heart and mind. This is a book to help us understand the American moment and to
help us better understand one another. Derek Black grew up at the epicenter of white
nationalism. His father founded Stormfront the largest racist community on the Internet. His
godfather David Duke was a KKK Grand Wizard. By the time Derek turned nineteen he had become
an elected politician with his own daily radio show-already regarded as the the leading light
of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. We can infiltrate Derek once told a crowd of
white nationalists. We can take the country back. Then he went to college. At New College of
Florida he continued to broadcast his radio show in secret each morning living a double life
until a classmate uncovered his identity and sent an email to the entire school. Derek Black
... white supremacist radio host ... New College student??? The ensuing uproar overtook one of
the most liberal colleges in the country. Some students protested Derek's presence on campus
forcing him to reconcile for the first time with the ugliness of his beliefs. Other students
found the courage to reach out to him including an Orthodox Jew who invited Derek to attend
weekly Shabbat dinners. It was because of those dinners-and the wide-ranging relationships
formed at that table-that Derek started to question the science history and prejudices behind
his worldview. As white nationalism infiltrated the political mainstream Derek decided to
confront the damage he had done. Rising Out of Hatred tells the story of how white-supremacist
ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga
of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe at tremendous personal
cost. With great empathy and narrative verve Eli Saslow asks what Derek Black's story can tell
us about America's increasingly divided nature.
