NPR

A Reformed White Nationalist Speaks Out On Charlottesville

Former white nationalist Christian Picciolini says he was "lost" and "lonely" when he was recruited into a white supremacist group as a teenager but he now runs a nonprofit that advocates for peace.
Christian Picciolini, founder of the group Life After Hate, poses for a photograph outside his Chicago home. Picciolini, a former skinhead, is an activist combatting what many see as a surge in white nationalism across the United States. / Teresa Crawford / Shutterstock.com

Christian Picciolini says he was a "lost and lonely" teenager when he was recruited by a white nationalist group. Picciolini immersed himself in the organization's ideology and by age 16, he had emerged as the leader of a group called the Chicago Area Skinheads. He even helped recruit others to the cause. That is until, he says, he had an awakening after the birth of his first child.

Picciolini says he renounced ties to the Neo-Nazi movement in 1996 when he.

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