Christian Picciolini

Christian Picciolini is an award-winning television producer, public speaker, author, anti-racism advocate, and a former extremist. After leaving the American hate movement he helped create during the 1980s and '90s, he began the painstaking process of making amends and rebuilding his life. Picciolini went on to earn a degree in international relations from DePaul University and launched Goldmill Group, a counter-extremism consulting and digital media firm. In 2016, he won an Emmy Award for producing an anti-hate advertising campaign aimed at helping people disengage from extremism. For nearly two decades, Picciolini has helped hundreds of individuals leave hate behind through his disengagement work and the organizations he founded. He has spoken all over the world, including the TEDx stage, where he shares his unique and extensive knowledge about how to effectively prevent and counter extremism.

Picciolini chronicles his involvement in and exit from the early American white supremacist skinhead movement in his memoir, "White American Youth," and is the featured subject in season three of WBEZ’s Motive podcast, which received the 2021 National Edward R. Murrow Award for best podcast in large market radio. He showcased his disengagement work in a second book, "Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism," as well as in the MSNBC documentary series of the same name. He is the host of the F Your Racist History podcast, a scripted history show that tells America's hidden, overlooked, and unknown racist origin stories.