Former white supremacist shares story of reform

A former white supremacist skinhead will be sharing his story next week during a talk in Whitefish as part of a tour across Montana.

Christian Picciolini will be sharing his story of how he went from helping build the white supremacist movement to working to disengage youth from white supremacist groups and violent extremism. The Montana Human Rights Network is hosting Picciolini for his “Life After Hate” tour to share his story and offer ways to counter the white supremacist movement.

He will speak on Monday, April 24 at the O’Shaughnessy Center downtown.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, co-director at the Montana Human Network, said the tour is prompted by recent hate activity in the state.

“We know we can combat violent extremism by understanding how good people get caught up in bad movements, politicians manipulate our unrest by blaming certain groups, and coded language leads to extremism,” she said in a prepared release.

She said Picciolini’s story is about how people are pulled into hate movements looking for identity and community.

“The white supremacist movement offered him and too many others a sense of purpose and someone to blame for his problems,” she said.

After leaving the movement he helped create, Picciolini began rebuilding his life and in 2010 co-founded Life After Hate, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping communities implement long-term solutions that counter racism and violent extremism. Today he is an Emmy Award-winning director and producer, an author, and a reformed extremist.

“The most important part of Christian’s story how he changed and he believes it’s everyone’s job to stand up to bigotry and violence everywhere we see it,” Carroll Rivas said.

More information can be found at http://www.mhrn.org