You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.

This talk features counter-extremism specialist Christian Piccolini, recorded live at TEDx Mile High 2017.

My journey away from violent extremism began 22 years ago when I denounced racism and left the

American white supremacist skinhead movement that I'd helped build.

I was just 22 years old at the time, but I had already spent eight years from the time I was 14 years old

as one of the earliest and youngest members and an eventual leader

within America's most violent hate movement.

But I wasn't born in to hate.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. I had a relatively normal childhood. My parents are

Italian immigrants who came to the United States in the mid-1960s and settled on the south

side of Chicago, where they eventually met and opened a small beauty shop.

Right after I was born, things got a little bit more difficult.

They struggled to survive with raising a young family and a new business,

often working seven days a week, 14 hours a day,

taking on second and third jobs just to earn a meager living.

And quality time with my parents was pretty non-existent.

Even though I knew they loved me very much, growing up I felt abandoned.

I was lonely, and I started to withdraw.

And then I started to resent my parents and become very angry.

And as I was growing up, through my teenage years, I started to act out to try and get attention

from my parents. And one day, when I was 14, I was standing in an alley, and I was smoking a joint,

and a man who was twice my age with a shaved head and tall black boots came up to me,

...