MLK's Dream and a Musical About an Impossible Friendship Between a White Supremacist and A Jew: Part I

Derek Black after winning a seat on the Palm Beach Republican Committee by appealing to white rights.

 I stumbled across a fantastic, true story last week about the far-reaching impact of a young man’s extraordinary courage to create belonging with someone who seemed to be his enemy. It is timely. And it speaks precisely to what we mean at Summit Stages when we talk about building the Beloved Community. (There really is a “we” now, because we have a founding team working on transforming our Summit Stages vision into reality. I’ll be introducing them to you in an upcoming newsletter). Today, though, I want to share that story in Summit Stages style, that is, as an outline for a musical. 

First, though, because our team has been talking a lot about nailing down what we mean by “the Beloved Community,” I want to highlight some key things that Martin Luther King Jr. taught that define what that term means. At its very most basic, he described it as “a truly brotherly society” that was characterized by courageous, Agape love. This love is more than “Philia” or “affection between friends.”  It is ”the love of God operating in the human heart.” In Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story he wrote “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes… [and] discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, Agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. ” He went on to propose that you can be most assured you’re practicing Agape love when you “have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.” 

And yet, he did not believe that Agape love could, over the long term, be unavailing. Eventually, it would disolve both hostility and persecution. He called it “redeeming good will for all” (emphasis added) and envisioned it changing the world into the Beloved Community; a place where poverty and homelessness would be eradicated, bigotry would be replaced with brotherhood and sisterhood, and peace would reign alongside justice. Loving your enemy did not mean going along with oppression and persecution. It meant standing up – nonviolently – for those rights of which your enemy sought to deprive you, but with love, not rancor, and with an eye toward your eventual reconciliation as equals. In a 1963 sermon titled “Loving Your Enemies,” King declared, ‘With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.” 

With that background, here is my rough outline for a musical based on the true story of Derek Black’s transformation from an opponent of the Beloved Community, into an ardent pursuer of it, at great personal sacrifice, thanks to another’s courage to show him Agape love. (The article linked above is excellent, but may be behind a paywall. If you can’t access it, you can still read or listen to an interview of the two friends here. And one more note: Derek recently transitioned to Adrianne, and now uses she/her pronouns, but for the purposes of this outline, I’ll be using the name and pronouns that were in use at the time the events took place). 

Logline: A friendly and influential white supremacist goes incognito to a progressive liberal arts college where he’s outed and treated as a pariah until an orthodox Jew offers genuine friendship that will dismantle his entire worldview. 

Derek’s misbelief: White culture represents the threatened summit of civilization

Unifying Theme: Loving and courageous engagement with our apparent enemies is what leads us to the summit of civilization. 

Act I

Scene 1:

Opening Number: “CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK” 

I Want Song: “MIGHTY and WHITE” 

19-year-old Derek and his father Don Black enter a restaurant, where they are warmly greeted by white well-wishers, who congratulate them both on Derek’s election to the Republican committee in Palm Beach County. They thank him for talking sense, and standing up against political correctness and reverse discrimination. Don and Derek move to a booth in the back, where Don starts singing about how these people have no idea who they’re agreeing with, and how Derek’s polite and rational approach to white nationalism will take the movement to the mainstream in ways that veteran KKKers like himself could never dream. Derek sings about how all his success is thanks to what he’s been learning from his dad, since he was 10 years old. He segues into his dream of restoring America’s pride in its white culture, and awakening its people to the danger of “white genocide.” Twenty years from now, the crime rates will have plummeted, communities will be peaceful and well-ordered, US literacy rates will be the envy of all the world, all without violence but by the triumph of solid science, common sense, and government policies that focus on what’s best for the nation and “our right to exist." Throughout their conversation, they’re served by an immigrant waitress, whom Don mostly ignores, but Derek thanks her at the end with a warm smile, and leaves a tip. 

Scene 2: 

Setting: The Black home

Song: NEW COLLEGE IS GETTING SOMETHING NEW

Derek and dad sign off from their radio talkshow, while mom (Chloe) finishes a telephone conversation with David Duke, who’s heard about Derek’s excellent grades at college and calls him the “heir apparent” of the movement, but worries that ultra-liberal New College, where he’s transferring, might corrupt him. The family laughs together about how that’s never going to happen and New College has no idea what’s about to hit them, and how everything is going to change. 

Scene 3: 

NEW COLLEGE IS GETTING SOMETHING NEW - Reprise

Matthew Stevenson packs his kiddush cup and sings about how he’s likely to be the only Orthodox Jew, and a proselyte, at New College. As a conservative who's interested in finance, he doesn’t expect to fit in well with the majority of the student body but at least he’ll be rooming with his Jewish friend Moshe. Both have experienced antisemitism, and will at least be able to support each other. 

Juan Elias hugs his mom goodbye at their tiny apartment in Miami, and she warns him not to give the time of day to any Marxist professors at New College. He might sympathize with the idea of economic equality after watching her eke out a living for them both, waiting tables, but he’s not going to forget that it was communist revolutionaries that caused an electrical blackout while he was being born by emergency c-section in Peru, or that they murdered his uncle. He’s not going to try and change the world. He’s just hoping he’ll find a place where he could maybe feel like he belongs. 

Scene 4: Song: DEI MEANS GOD/ DEI MEANS DIE

Derek, Matthew and Juan all attend a student orientation where they learn about the college’s unwavering commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Matthew wonders whether his style of diversity will be welcome here, while Derek realizes that his will not, and he’s not going to make any friends if he shares his views. Despite his reservations about his own welcome, Matthew muses on how DEI is latin for “God” and connects the concepts with the Zohar’s call to practice active, unifying love that treats everyone, regardless of their beliefs or behaviours, as an end in themselves, never a means to an end. Derek sneaks off campus and calls in to his radio show from a payphone. He mocks DEI then denounces it as part of the push for “white genocide.”

Scene 5: 

Song: CLASS ECONOMICS

The scene starts with a rousing Marxist song and dance number about the evils of capitalism. Afterward, Derek, Matthew and Juan all stay behind after class to challenge the professor’s portrayal of a market economy. The students are surprised to find they all agree with each other and carry on the conversation in a courtyard, where Derek eventually starts strumming his guitar and the topic moves to more personal things. Derek asks the other two about their backgrounds, but manages to brush aside questions about his own. 

Scene 6:

Song: TRADING HATS

Derek struggles with the inconsistencies between the two halves of his life. He actually enjoys spending time with his friends, but he can’t forget that these are people he keeps saying don’t belong in America. He talks about manipulative Jews running the political establishment on his radio show but changes the subject when a caller starts denying the holocaust, then listens intently to Moshe’s story about his grandfather’s survival in a concentration camp. He sings to himself that he’s not being inconsistent. He’s just trading hats between the student and the social warrior, and the more he learns about what makes minorities tick, the more effective he can be as a white nationalist. 

Scene 8: 

Song: HISTORY ALL AROUND US

Derek goes to Germany on a study abroad program about Medieval Europe. Program participants marvel at the sense of history being near enough to touch. In a high-energy dance number, they sing about inventions and persecutions, things that make them proud of their European ancestors, and other things that cause them to cringe (only Derek’s take is different and sung as an aside).  One Arab-American member of the group notes that medieval Europe was indebted to the learning of the Muslims that was shared with them at the multicultural Spanish city at Cordoba. Derek is taken aback. 

Scene 9: 

WHITE SUPREMACIST IN OUR MIDST/NEW COLLEGE IS GIVING SOMETHING NEW

Derek returns to his room after an outing, pulls up his desktop, and notices there has been a lot of activity on a new thread from his college forum. He pulls up the originating message and sees a photograph of himself, under the heading “Have you seen this man?” The message then reads: “Derek black; white supremacist; radio host… new college student??? How do we as a community react?” Students gather in groups, arguing about him. Some are vicious. Others quote some of his most disturbing statements from his radio show and a white supremacist website he helped create. Eventually, most of them agree he should be ostracized. Derek sits with his head in his hands, staring at his computer screen. 

END OF ACT I

To Be Continued, next week with an outline for Act II. 

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