Christian Picciolini spent his teens and early 20s handing out hate literature at punk-rock concerts, chanting the American neo-Nazi creed at rallies, and beating up black kids in his suburban Chicago neighborhood.
He was a “white power” skinhead who devoured the racism of The Turner Diaries and toured the United States — and Germany — with a band he founded called Final Solution.
Picciolini, 44, leads a very different life today. A co-founder of the peace-advocacy group Life After Hate and author of a memoir called White American Youth: My Descent Into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement — and How I Got Out (Hachette, 2017), he now uses his story to explain what attracts people to extremist groups and what can be done to dim their allure. He said he found the strength to leave the movement from his own maturation, the kindness he received from the eclectic customer base at his music shop, and his desire to live a more honorable life for his children and wife…
Read more in The Chronicle of Higher Education.