Former Skinhead leader Frank Meeink, who is now a writer, motivational speaker and an advocate for peace, spoke Tuesday as part of the Leadership Workshop Series.
Meeink is the son of an Irish mother and Italian father, both of whom were influenced by drugs and alcohol. He grew up in a South Pennsylvania neighborhood of Irish, blacks and Italians, where racial and ethnic tensions were evident.
In 1989, at age fourteen, he visited his cousin in Lancaster, Pa., who was a member of the Skinheads, a Neo-Nazi white supremacy gang. Meeink was instantly drawn to their anti-multiracial beliefs and terrorism of minority races with justification from the Bible.
“There is nothing more powerful in the world,” Meeink stated, “than doing evil because God gave you that right.”
Meeink shaved his head upon joining the Skinheads and by age fifteen had a swastika tattooed on his neck. Describing himself as a “violent, crazed racist,” he committed crimes virtually every day.
Meeink ventured from Philadelphia, Pa., to Indianapolis, Ind., and finally to Springfield, Ill., recruiting followers.
After he and an accomplice held a man prisoner, beating him and videotaping the crime, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping.
Although he was only 17 years old, Meeink was charged as an adult and subsequently sentenced to three to five years in state prison.
While in prison, Meeink underwent a series of life-changing events.
He began to read the Bible while in a maximum security cell and prayed that God would set him free.
Instead, he was relocated to the general population prison. According to Meeink, this was the moment God revealed Himself to him. Among his fellow prisoners, Meeink joined a Bible study group and played sports with other inmates, some of whom belonging to races he previously terrorized.
Upon his release, Meeink returned to Pennsylvania, but he could not reconnect with his Skinhead friends. After finding a job moving antique furniture and bonding with his Jewish boss, he began to question his beliefs, especially after his boss gave him the confidence he never had before.
“I was so embarrassed by my beliefs,” Meeink said. “I knew that [my lifestyle] was wrong because God, human nature and science constantly proved me wrong by placing good people in my life.”
When the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred in 1995, Meeink was stunned by the images of the massacre, realizing that he might have known the person behind it.
At this point, he began to feel evil because he participated in and encouraged violence, and now he was seeing the deadly aftermath of such a crime.
Meeink went to the FBI with his story, and also appeared before a Civil Rights Group, with a desire to “put what [he] knew into action.”
He started a program called “Harmony Through Hockey,” in which young people of different races can interact and learn valuable skills.
Meeink left his ULM audience with the message that people of different races are not so different after all.
“Race is really just a myth….Our job on this earth is to be at maximum service to the next human being you come into contact with,” he said.
Students were inspired and moved by Meeink’s story.
“Everything he said came from a genuine place,” said Ashlyn McClung. “Even though he was rough, his content was really good. It was beautiful what he said”.
“It was very exhilarating,” said Devin Weaver, “I could definitely see remorse coming out. To hear from someone coming from Neo-Nazi beliefs is definitely something to enjoy, and I want to see him again.”
