Don Black (white nationalist)

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Stephen Donald Black
Born July 28, 1953(1953-07-28)
Athens, Alabama
Nationality American Flag of the United States
Alma mater University of Alabama
Known for Stormfront
Website
Stormfront

Stephen Donald Black (born July 28, 1953) is an American white nationalist and neo-nazi. He is the founder and current webmaster of "Stormfront" internet forum.[1] He was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s.[2][3] He was convicted in 1981 for attempted armed overthrow of the Dominican government in violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act.[4][5]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Black was born in Athens, Alabama, and became an activist at an early age when he began passing out racially charged newspapers White Power and the Thunderbolt at his high school. This led to a decision by the local school board to ban the distribution of political literature. Black countered by mailing literature to student addresses obtained from school handbooks. He said in an interview that growing up in the South during the turmoil of the civil rights movement made him aware from a White political perspective. [6]

In the summer of 1970, after his junior year at Athens High School, Black traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to work on the gubernatorial campaign of J.B. Stoner, a segregationist and leader of the National States' Rights Party (NSRP). It was in this election that Jimmy Carter won the Georgia governorship. Don Black was asked to obtain a copy of the NSRP membership list by Robert Lloyd, a leader of the National Socialist White People's Party, formerly known as the American Nazi Party. [1] At the time, Black was a member of the Party's youth branch, the National Socialist Youth Movement.

Also working on the Stoner campaign was Jerry Ray, the brother of Martin Luther King's assassin James Earl Ray. On July 25, 1970, Jerry Ray shot Black (who was 16 at the time) in the chest with a .38-caliber hollow-point bullet to stop him from taking files from Stoner's campaign office. Ray was acquitted of all charges by claiming at trial that he saw Black reaching for a weapon.[7] Black quickly recovered from his wounds and was able to join his party comrades in their annual Labor Day rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He finished his senior year at Madison Academy, an all-White private school in Huntsville.

After high school, Black attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa majoring in political science. He took Army ROTC classes and finished the basic program. Later he was denied participation in the advance programs due to his politics.

[edit] The Ku Klux Klan and Operation Red Dog

Black joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1975, one year after David Duke took over the organization. He moved to Birmingham to become the group's state organizer. After the resignation of Duke in 1978, Black became Grand Wizard, or national director, of the Klan. He ran for mayor of Birmingham in 1979 and received 2 percent of the vote.

On April 27, 1981, Black and nine other would-be mercenaries - many recruited from Klan affiliated organizations - were arrested in New Orleans as they prepared to board a boat stocked with weapons and ammunition to invade the island nation Dominica in what they would call Operation Red Dog. However, the local media would label the botched attempt the "Bayou of Pigs,"; a play on words for the unsuccessful 1961 "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba.

Black tried to spin the invasion as an attempt to set up an anti-communist regime later saying, "What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government," [8] The invasion was intended to restore former prime minister Patrick John to the mostly Black Caribbean island. Prosecutors said the real purpose for the invasion would have been to setup tourist, gambling, offshore banking, and timber logging operations on the impoverished island.

Black was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the attempted invasion and his violation of the Neutrality Act. He was released in 1984, having served his sentence in a federal prison in Texas. During his time in federal prison Black took computer programing classes which led him to establish Stormfront on the Internet years later. [9]

In 1986 Black rethought his commitment to the KKK, resigning from the group in 1987.

He tried once again running for office in Alabama, this time as a Populist Party US Senate candidate.

[edit] From Stormfront to today

Main article: Stormfront (website)

Black founded Stormfront in 1995. The website generally is seen as being the internet's first major hate site,[10] and remains one of the most popular.[11] Stormfront featured the writings of William Luther Pierce and David Duke, as well as works by the Institute for Historical Review. Initially, along with these articles, Stormfront housed a library of white pride, neo-Nazi and white power skinhead graphics for downloading, and a number of links to other white nationalist websites.

In 2004, Black joined in signing the New Orleans Protocol on behalf of Stormfront.[citation needed] The protocol, written by David Duke, seeks to curb infighting and division within White Nationalism and improve the way White Nationalism presents itself.[citation needed] Black attended meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens in the 1990s, 2004 and 2005, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.[citation needed] In December 2007, Black gained attention for donating money to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential run.[12][13].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sources which consider Stormfront a white supremacist website are:
  2. ^ Etchingham, Julie. "Hate.com expands on the net", BBC News, January 12, 2000. Retrieved on 2007-09-14. 
  3. ^ New Times Feb. 19-25, 1998 article "The Racist Next Door" (archived on stormfront.org)
  4. ^ Lloyd, Robin. "Web trackers hunt racist groups online", CNN, August 12, 1999. Retrieved on 2007-09-14. 
  5. ^ McKelvey, Tara. "Father and son team on hate site", USA Today, August 16, 2001. Retrieved on 2008-01-29. 
  6. ^ White supremacist former KKK leader spreads views on net
  7. ^ Postscript
  8. ^ The Racist Next Door
  9. ^ The Racist Next Door
  10. ^ Levin, Brian. "Cyberhate: A Legal and Historical Analysis of Extremists' Use of Computer Networks in America."Hate and Bias Crime: A Reader. Ed. Barbara Perry. Routledge, 2003. 363.
  11. ^ Cohen-Almagor, Raphael. The Scope of Tolerance: Studies on the costs of free expression and freedom of the press. Routledge, 2005. 254.
  12. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071219/ap_po/ron_paul_white_supremacist
  13. ^ http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/BREAKINGNEWS/71219044

[edit] External links

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