Unlearning Hate: Lessons for our Racial Divide

Facing History and Ourselves Cleveland is celebrating 20 years of supporting young people to confront bigotry and antisemitism. Join us, Tuesday, May 7, for a moving evening about the power of identity and personal transformation. Marc Skvirsky, Facing History’s Vice President and Chief Program Officer, will lead a conversation with R. Derek Black, a former white nationalist, and Allison Gornik, whose intervention was critical to his transformation, about what it means to walk away from a life of hate and into an inclusive and diverse community.

Meaningful engagement with our past and present is the foundation of a strong and humane democracy. This is the moment. Together we can help prepare the next generation to face history now.

General Admission tickets - $30

Student tickets - $5

*For Group Pricing - Please Email or call 216.321.9220 x221

R. Derek Black’s father founded Stormfront, the first and largest white supremacist community on the Internet, and his godfather, David Duke, was once a leader of the KKK. By age nineteen, Black was regarded as the white nationalist movement’s “leading light.” In the midst of the furor over his presence on a liberal arts campus, Black accepted an invitation to attend weekly Shabbat dinners in the dorms. After years of often contentious conversations, Black disavowed the white nationalist movement, acknowledging the harm that it caused, and publicly renounced it in 2013. He has been actively speaking out against white supremacy ever since. His story is the subject of the new book Rising Out of Hatred by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eli Saslow.

Allison Gornik is a native of Mentor, Ohio and currently a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at Michigan State University. At New College of Florida, Allison met Derek Black and learned about his familial and personal activism on behalf of white nationalism. Through many private and often painful conversations, Derek eventually renounced white nationalism. Allison’s role in this story is a primary focus of Eli Saslow’s new book Rising Out of Hatred.