Life after hate: Former self-described neo-Nazi skinhead talks to WFTV's Vanessa Echols

At the top of Angela King’s Twitter page is a message from a month after the tumultuous 2016 election.

“Ignorance, anger, fear – all unbearably loud right now. The most important thing we can do about it? Ensure that our compassion is louder,” King tweeted.

King’s call for compassion comes from a different place than similar messages in this politically charged time. Twenty years ago, King was a self-described neo-Nazi skinhead going to federal prison after being convicted of a hate crime.

"I think there are a few different things that led me into involvement with the violent far right," said King, who grew up in South Florida. She spoke to WFTV anchor Vanessa Echols for the podcast Colorblind: Race Across Generations.

“I was raised in a home where I was taught racism and homophobia. My parents would use racial slurs, stereotypes … those are the kind of jokes my family liked to tell. To be quite honest, I didn’t think it was really abnormal because that’s what I knew.”

King was raised with a Baptist school background and as she went through middle school, she said she dealt with identity issues. When she was 12, King said she was bullied for the first time, but fought back.

“[I] reasoned with my adolescent brain that if I was the one doing the bullying then it could never happen to me again,” King said.

By the time she was in high school, King said she was drinking, doing drugs and was promiscuous.

She said she struggled socially. At one point she was hanging out with a gang – until she says one of its members raped her.

King said she eventually fit in with a new social scene – a group of Neo-Nazi skinheads.

A safe space to talk & listen: A Q&A with WFTV’s Vanessa Echols

“If they walked down the hall, other students would get out of the way,” King said. “I mistook that for respect.”

King said the group welcomed her despite her upbringing and personal struggles.

But it wasn’t too long before King said she was in more trouble. She said she would start fights with other people – at first, only with other white people.

Over time she said her appearance changed, too. Suddenly she was covered with racist tattoos.

One night she said she went out with her friends, got drunk at a bar, and started talking about what they could do to support their cause.

They finally decided to rob a Jewish-owned store and give some of the money to a violent far right organization they were association with. The group was caught and charged with a hate crime.

“I never made an attempt to stop it,” King told Echols. “For that, I found myself sitting in a federal prison at the age of 23.”

Read: Vanessa Echols shares her story about surviving breast cancer

At first, she didn’t take responsibility for the robbery because she said she stayed in the car. She was placed in solitary confinement for several weeks because corrections officials weren’t sure how she would interact with a diverse prison population.

“I was suddenly alone. I didn’t have my support system with me,” said King, who added that being incarcerated was the most diversity she had ever been exposed to up to the at point in her life. She said she did her best to cover her racist tattoos.

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Then one day, a black woman in prison befriended her by asking if she knew how to play the card game cribbage.

“That began a turning point in my entire life,” King said. “That was two decades ago. She and I are still friends today."

That day started a long road to realization. Listen to Vanessa Echols' podcast Colorblind: Race Across Generations for the entire conversation, including how King said she went from neo-Nazi skinhead to co-founder of the group Life After Hate, receiving numerous accolades from the Anti-Defamation League and the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center.

Look for new episodes of Colorblind: Race Across Generations Fridays on iTunes and through Google Play.

Cox Media Group