Don Black, Duke, and a third man drive to a white supremacist gathering in Arlington, cementing Don's future in the movement.

Don founds Stormfront after years as Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, creating the internet's most prominent white supremacist organizing forum.

Derek's parents remove him from public school after third grade and homeschool him with white nationalist ideology as the foundation.

Duke introduces 19-year-old Derek as the leading light of white nationalism at a major movement conference.

Derek wins election as a Palm Beach County Republican committeeman by using coded language to avoid explicit racial discussion.

Derek launches an AM radio show and transfers to New College of Florida, a progressive liberal arts school.

A classmate discovers Derek's white nationalist identity on the SPLC website and exposes him on the New College forum.

Duke visits Derek and encourages him to return to campus and redouble his commitment to white nationalism.

Matthew invites Derek to his weekly Shabbat dinner, offering a rare social lifeline on a campus that has shunned him.

Allison attends Derek's second Stormfront conference and realizes he is far more central to the movement than she had understood.

Allison sends Derek scientific studies refuting his beliefs on race and IQ, and their relationship shifts from friendship to romance.

Derek drafts a complete public denunciation of white nationalism and sends it to the SPLC with instructions to publish in full.

Don discovers the published denunciation, calls Derek thinking it is a hack, and erupts in a cycle of rage and grief.

Derek legally changes his name and leaves Florida for Michigan, effectively estranged from his family and former community.

Derek publishes an op-ed in The New York Times warning about the dangers of the alt-right and mainstream white nationalism.

Derek Black is groomed from childhood by his white nationalist father Don and godfather David Duke to become the future leader of their movement. After years of building his profile through Stormfront, a radio show, and political victories, Derek enrolls at New College of Florida, where his worldview begins to unravel. When a classmate exposes his identity, Derek initially redoubles his commitment to white nationalism, but regular attendance at Shabbat dinners and a deepening relationship with Allison Gornik slowly erode his beliefs. Allison uses science, emotion, and persistent debate to systematically dismantle the ideology Derek was raised to champion. After years of private struggle, Derek publicly denounces white nationalism, shattering his relationship with his family. He rebuilds his life in opposition to his former ideology, writing publicly about the dangers of the movement he once led.

Derek Black's rise and fall as white nationalism's leading voice.

Don's parents send him to a psychiatrist after his teenage white nationalist organizing draws the attention of the FBI.

Derek builds the Stormfront children's website while homeschooled, becoming an active digital voice for white nationalism at a young age.

Derek appears alongside Don in national media interviews on USA Today, Nickelodeon, and NBC.

Palm Beach County Republicans vote to block Derek from his elected seat, and the controversy draws national media attention.

Derek meets Juan Elias while both are lost on the way to New College, forming his first friendship with a nonwhite person.

Rose reveals she is Jewish to Derek at orientation, triggering a deep internal conflict about his lifelong beliefs regarding Jews.

The New College forum thread exposing Derek becomes the most active in college history as students debate how to respond.

The New College administration concludes it cannot expel Derek over his ideology, and he is forced to live off campus.

Derek hosts his first Stormfront conference in Tennessee, rallying hundreds of white nationalists around his strategy for mainstream acceptance.

Students hold a campus shutdown rally against racism and Derek's presence, which Derek attends anonymously and reflects upon.

Allison connects with Derek on a small sailboat, finds herself drawn to him, and begins questioning her own moral conflict.

Derek posts a partial renunciation of white nationalism on the New College forum, tentatively embracing a new mindset.

Derek responds to the SPLC confirming he still believes in white nationalism, immediately undoing the progress made with his classmates.

Western Michigan University accepts Derek into a medieval studies graduate program as he seeks a quieter life away from controversy.

Don and Derek meet in a bar for a fruitless debate before Derek leaves Florida, marking the end of their close relationship.

Don Black's journey into white nationalism begins in his teenage years and eventually leads him to create Stormfront, the internet's most powerful white supremacist organizing tool. Derek carries on Don's legacy from a young age, building digital content and appearing in national media before winning a local political office. When Derek arrives at New College and is exposed as a prominent white nationalist, the community's reaction creates both intense isolation and the conditions for his transformation. His friendship with Juan Elias, his complicated feelings for Rose, and his on-campus alienation all push Derek toward difficult questions about his identity. Allison Gornik's slow and cautious engagement with Derek accelerates his change, and his tentative public forum posts mark the first visible cracks in his white nationalist identity. The final chapter of this pool traces Derek's stumbling exit from the movement, from his private acceptance of the ideology's flaws to his formal departure from Florida and his father.

The secondary forces that shaped Derek's transformation and isolation.

Don is convicted for attempting to overthrow the government of Dominica and learns computer science during his federal prison sentence.

Derek meets Matthew Stevenson at orientation and, despite his ideology's hostility toward Jews, finds Matthew genuinely likeable and befriends him.

Derek adopts a dual identity, actively disguising his white nationalist fame from campus friends as both his movement profile and personal friendships grow.

Rose ceases all communication with Derek after his white nationalist identity is exposed and the campus turns against him.

Some New College students physically attack Derek, while others advocate for reaching out and including him in campus life.

Matthew's strategy of nonjudgmental inclusion leads Derek to privately wonder whether so many intelligent people he respects could all be wrong.

Derek evolves to the point of rejecting the white supremacist label and accepting Jews as white, though other core beliefs persist.

Allison enrolls in a psychology course on prejudice and uses her coursework to systematically challenge Derek's racial theories.

Don notices Derek has quietly stopped posting on Stormfront and begun skipping radio broadcasts to paddle alone and think.

Derek researches the history of whiteness in medieval Europe and finds that his beliefs about white genocide are factually flawed.

Derek tells Allison the white nationalist ideology is flawed and that he has moved away from it.

Derek graduates from New College as his mother and grandmother attend the ceremony, but Don stays home to avoid controversy.

Derek visits his parents and his confusion about his father's views shifts into anger and horror at his own former self.

Stormfront radicalizes Dylann Roof into murdering nine Black church members, and Derek wonders if his past speeches helped inspire the attack.

Derek returns home to reconnect with his family but finds Don's provocations and entrenched ideology make genuine reconciliation impossible.

Derek's transformation is not a sudden reversal but a gradual series of private turning points, each one chipping away at an ideology built over two decades of indoctrination. His genuine friendships with Matthew Stevenson and others force him into an uncomfortable contradiction: the people his ideology labels as enemies are the same people he respects and cares about. As his exposure on campus creates chaos, key moments — Rose cutting contact, students attacking him, and Matthew's quiet strategy of inclusion — push Derek toward private doubt. Allison Gornik's systematic use of psychology and scientific research strips away the intellectual foundations of Derek's beliefs one by one, until he privately admits to her that the ideology is flawed. His graduation, his visit to his parents after the Zimmerman acquittal, and his dawning horror at the violence inspired by white nationalism finally spur him to public action. Even after his denunciation, Derek's attempt to rebuild a relationship with his family collapses, revealing the unbridgeable divide his ideological awakening has created.

The private turning points and revelations behind Derek's ideological awakening.